Tim Montgomerie's piece in The Times today (£) has certainly got tongues wagging. Though Montgomerie wrongly seeks to caricature UKIP as a Party not in touch with the British people - when in reality very few people want to see things like foreign aid lavished on the likes of India - he does point out a few interesting things.
There are some Tory MPs seriously considering defecting to UKIP. That's hardly surprising given UKIP's increasingly solid polling and recent defection of Councillors, a former Conservative Future Deputy Chairman and an MEP in Roger Helmer.
I think however Montgomerie's thinking is a bit wishful. I truly believe that the 'Cameron Project' hasn't just temporarily turned off some true blue Tories who will easily return to the fold. What we are instead seeing is people formerly who had spent decades in the Conservative Party breaking away perhaps forever, such is their disillusionment. They see a Conservative Prime Minister they campaigned to get in, who seems utterly terrified with the notion of implementing small-c conservative policies. Instead, he's jumping through hoops to appease the LibDems, a Party that is polling the same 11% as UKIP in the latest Survation poll.
What's more, Cameron can't do a damn thing about those now opting to vote UKIP who previously didn't vote at all, voted Labour or voted LibDem. UKIP's Bradford by-election candidate was a former Green Party member! These are people who would never vote Tory anyway, particularly in the North, and give UKIP a resilient backbone that is not up for grabs for Cameron anyway. It is this widening appeal nationwide combined with the Tory defectors that should worry Cameron. UKIP is not a narrowly appealing Party filled to the brim with ex-Tories as the media would have you believe.
What's more, UKIP is no longer some upstart Party of two or three years with no national structure or activist base and the signs going into this year's May local elections are very good. In many areas UKIP are putting up more local candidates than the governing LibDems. That shouldn't just worry the Tories, but all of the establishment parties currently inhabiting Westminster.
Tory MPs defecting to UKIP is a big threat to the current status quo. Even bigger will be UKIP's ability to have built up local strongholds and have UKIP MPs elected outright in 2015.
4 comments:
What surprises me about Tim's article is how far away he is from understanding the psychology of the 'traditional' conservative. These people, like myself, are profoundly loyal. We stuck by the conservative party through thick and thin. All through the tough times in the late 1990s and 2000s. We saw through the Blair hype and in the face of mass media ridicule, we have seen our concerns proved correct.
We endured the Blair years and stayed loyal to conservative principles and values.
It takes a hell of a lot to get rid of people like us, but Cameron is doing it.
We did not endure years of ridicule and abuse, campaigning and fighting against Blairism only to see a conservative Prime Minister EMBRACE Blairism in full!
We are still loyal to conservatism, unfortunately the conservative party's leadership is not.
They talk conservatism whilst implementing "third way" statist corporatism. They are more politically correct than Blair's babes and so subservient to the EU it is embarrassing. They are NOT conservatives. There is only so long that they can piss on our boots and tell us it is raining, before we say ENOUGH!
Once we leave, we do not go back!
Tim's article utterly fails to recognise the problem. It is not the "far right" of the party, which is duty bound to fall into line... It is the realisation that there is no difference between all three main parliamentary parties on any of the main and serious palicy areas anymore. On all the following areas of policy:
pro-surveillance state,
pro-EU subservience,
Pro immigration,
pro high taxes,
pro climate change taxation and control,
pro big government,
pro ECHR,
pro terrorists and criminals rights,
pro corrupt corporate lobbying,
Pro-big banker,
pro high debt,
pro-politically correct divisiveness,
pro-merging our defence with that of France,
soft on crime and law and order,
soft on welfare…
There is no significant difference between the three main parliamentary parties and what is worse, all three main parties are completely wrong on all of them.
And even on deficit reduction there is now less than 1% difference between George Osborne’s current situation and Alistair Darling’s 2010 plan.
There is no significant difference between all three main parliamentary parties.
It is impossible to vote for any of them as a vote for change, because they are all the same.
Only UKIP offers real change and the correct vision on each and every one of the above policy areas.
That is why I no longer support the conservatives and why I will vote UKIP.
Tim should understand that. IF he put the interests of the country before the interests of the EU commission, then he would realise this.
Great article Michael as always.You forgot Cllr Malcom Davies Dudley MBC elected on a UKIP ticket former Lib-Dem candidate
After voting Tory since I was old enough to scrawl my 'X' on the ballot paper, I will no longer vote for them. Cameron is about as much a Tory as was Nye Bevan. We have been lied to, deceived, you name it..and I've had enough.
As a family of life long Tories we have moved to UKIP en mass. We are also steadily promoting the party to our friends as the alternative party to the Tory party as the |Tories no longer represent our views. We may be one small family in the big picture of things, but we are steadily promoting UKIP to our friends. We too have made the move and will never go back.
Post a Comment