THANKS TO YOU TUBE, Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), is becoming well known across the pond. I watched his interview on the Fox News channel when he described the European President José Emanuel Barroso as an idiot for blaming America for the euro debacle. Farage’s performances in the European Parliament (also on You Tube) are exemplary pieces of theatre, which gives us Eurosceptics the hope that there is now a credible, articulate, and talented individual who can stop the rot. As Adrian Hilton, writing today in the Daily Mail, says; ‘Day by day, minute by minute, speech by speech and word by word, the United Kingdom Independence Party looks and sounds increasingly like the Conservative Party in exile’.
Nigel Farage has positioned himself on the political spectrum where once the Tory Party felt at home over the past 100 years; but now feel distinctly uncomfortable.
There are, however, many Tories inside and outside of parliament who bemoan their party’s retreat from the centre-Right agenda it once offered to British Conservatives – whether of the big ‘C’ or little ‘c’ kind. Now that agenda has been captured by UKIP and is becoming more credible under Mr Farage’s leadership.
Once known only as a single issue party, UKIP now embraces a traditional conservative agenda covering, to quote Adrian Hilton once more; ‘[UKIP’s] policies cover the economy, law and order, education, defence, patriotism, Christianity, immigration, over-regulation, tax reduction, and their support for private enterprise, traditional marriage and the family, and (of course) the thorny question of the European Union. There is no longer any credible assertion that UKIP is a ‘single-issue’ protest party or pressure group’.
THERE IS HOWEVER, one essential ingredient missing. Mr Farage is somewhat isolated and needs more talent to join him if he is to attract the attention of the British voter. At the moment, neither Europe or David Cameron has any fear of him. Only when he leads a credible party of politicians with experience, faculty and aptitude, will he pose a genuine threat to Europe and David Cameron.
Mr Farage has captured what is called the zeitgeist. Today the British are Eurosceptic, anti-immigration, and strong believers in a more robust attitude to law and order. They have been made cynical by broken promises and empty rhetoric, used to entice their support but immediately abandoned after they have played their part in helping politicians up the greasy pole.
What needs to happen? Well the Tory benches are not short of talent and much of it euro- sceptical. It is among such a shoal that Mr Farage must cast his net. They must be told that the Conservative Party no longer represents their desires for the country (some of whom already believe this, but are holding back from what they consider disloyalty to the party).
The party that David Cameron leads is Europhile from top, but not to bottom. If those Eurosceptic Tories that adorn the government benches believe, as I know they do, that this country needs to stay a nation, make its own laws, and retain its sovereignty; then they must look toward a Conservative Party that reflects their ambitions: and David Cameron’s party is no longer such a party.
If those Eurosceptic back benches remain seated where they are, and remain loyal to their current leader, they will surely lose this nation to a Greater European Imperium.
To such people the party they loved and believed in has left them. They must turn toward a party where their talents are needed and pose a genuine threat to the construction of a United States of Europe in which we are told we will have to belong, ‘eventually’.
The Conservative Party slowly drifted away from its moorings after Margaret Thatcher was driven from office, and the party has sailed haplessly ever since.
IT IS NOW UP TO UKIP and its talented leader to try and persuade experienced and gifted eurosceptic Tory politicians into joining them. After all, the Tories own voters are leading the way by turning away from Cameron’s Tory party and changing their allegiance to UKIP, according to the polls.
The issue of Europe has set in motion a modern Reformation of the British Conservative Party. Europe has always held out the promise of dividing the Conservative party, but eurosceptic rhetoric, especially by Cameron - who one day dismisses a referendum on Europe, followed by a mere ‘hint’ of a promise to do so in order to keep his own Eurosceptics on board; throws a less than meaty bone to the Tory press, all of whom desperately want to believe that Cameron is a true blue Tory.
We are at a turning point. Over the coming days and months Tory Euroscepticism must make a choice between a Conservative party which no longer displays the attributes of such an organisation, or turn to a party which cannot survive without them. UKIP is the way forward for traditional Conservatives. Such Conservatives could not find fault with UKIP’s political agenda; after all, it is one which they hoped Cameron would adopt. What was it the Daily Mail’s Adrian Hilton said? ‘ [The]United Kingdom Independence Party looks and sounds increasingly like the Conservative Party in exile’: and so it does.
If those Tory Eurosceptics took a great leap forward and abandoned the forgery of a once great party, they would be recognised by history for the work they did.
NIGEL FARAGE is a better political leader than any of those representing the main parties in Great Britain. What he lacks is a body of support that can help engineer his party’s success. This is why the Eurosceptics within the Tory Party must look beyond the comfort zone of parliament if they are genuine about keeping this nation intact.
UKIP is a traditional Conservative Party in all but name. They began as a single issue party but have expanded into accepting the full curricula of traditional Conservativism- a curricula which the modern Cameron led his social democratic strain away from for fear of being seen as the ‘nasty party’.
UKIP must persist with trying to bring on board the many talented Tory Eurosceptics. The Tory Eurosceptics in turn, must be prepared to listen. For without their support UKIP will no doubt fail and the Tory Eurosceptics will be left with a Europhile leadership ready to sell the nation’s soul to a United States of Europe.
I cannot believe that this is what Tory Eurosceptics want. If not, they now have a way out and should take it if they believe in the British nation state.
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