Third party Issues

                                    Third party issues

Now with a second by election victory for UKIP the inquest continues and all the papers and media are looking at and studying the results as well as the political class. In many ways the appeal of UKIP is due to several factors, Immigration being one of the most commonly cited ones. This tends to ignore the question of what is the real issue.

Many politicians of the mainstream parties are now trying to emulate UKIP in their foreign policy including the Prime Minister. This of course ensures that the issue of immigration remains in the news benefitting UKIP all the more.

In the case of UKIP its rise cannot simply be explained by the number of immigrants but something broader which is a mounting anger at the political class. This is a current which runs deep in our society. The mainstream parties namely the Conservatives and Labour both have the disadvantages of power, the Conservatives being in power now and Labour having fairly recently been in power. The traditional third party, the Liberal Democrats is tainted by association with   being in government now and can no longer act as a lightning rod for dissent.

In this way UKIP is taking votes from major parties with a steady stream of cynicism about their behaviour in office. One of the first key setters of disillusionment with the current political class was the expenses scandal in which MPs were found to have stolen from the system in quite large ways. The result was a few MPs from both major parties have been sent to prison. However all of them were at it from all major parties! The minor parties of course remain untainted by this scandal. UKIP however as far as expenses claims are concerned have not shown themselves to be behind on this as far as the European parliament is concerned where they have representation with one of their members also being convicted of abusing the system.

The general feeling at this time of recession has been a lot of anger at the ruling parties. They are seen to be under the control of a metropolitan elite that is far removed from the people they represent. The idea of MPs telling people to tighten their belts while voting themselves above inflation pay rises has not been lost on the British Voter. In general cynicism about the major parties rules! Add to this the fact that the major parties are seen as not being every different from each other there is even more cynicism about them.

On both counts the major parties are seen ever more as two sides of the same coin and there is a drift of voters to UKIP and now on the other side to the Green Party which is also enjoying a surge in the polls. The result of this of course will be at the next general election probably be an increase in the vote of these two parties at the expense of the mainstream parties