Given the
rise in popularity of Nigel Farage’s UKIP, it’s about time the British people
were made aware of the truth about this populist group.
First, their
claim to be some kind of ‘alternative’ to the ‘Westminster Elite’. This cannot
be the case when they fully intend to continue, in a more extreme form, the
failed neoliberal economic system espoused by Thatcher, Major, Blair and
Cameron. And when you consider the fact their first elected MP and second if
Mark Reckless wins Rochester & Strood on November 20, are both
ex-Conservative MPs then their claim to be an alternative looks ever more
false. In fact, the fact that many of their leading MEPs (including Farage,
Roger Helmer, Janice Atkinson, Bill Etheridge and many others) were once
staunch members of the Conservative Party – not to mention the presence of Neil
Hamilton in the party – is further proof that UKIP are not some new hip kids on
the block but the Tory Party reincarnated in a much more extreme form.
Then there’s
their claim to be a ‘people’s army’ and an apparent voice of the disaffected
working class. Contrary to popular belief, Nigel Farage is not an ‘ordinary
bloke down the pub’ but the son of a stockbroker, public school-educated
(Dulwich College) and, upon leaving school, started work as a city trader.
Anyway, what alleged voice of the working class plans to make people pay to see
their GP and privatise the NHS (which Deputy Leader Paul Nuttall has stated
should happen on numerous occasions)? What voice of the working class plans to
remove legislation protecting workers’ rights (the real reason why UKIP wants
us to leave the EU)? What voice of the working class would even think of
suggesting a 35% flat tax (which was in their 2010 election manifesto)? The
truth of the matter is that pretending to represent the working class is
exactly that when their policies would hammer working people and be drastically
in favour of big business.
Finally,
while officially UKIP do not take a racist line, their anti-EU and anti-immigration
stance is making racist and xenophobic bigotry more acceptable and, given that Fascist
groups Britain First and the EDL have instructed their supporters to vote UKIP,
the party is playing a part in the growing hostility among ordinary working people
towards immigrants – their fellow human beings – which is heading dangerously
towards 1930s Germany levels.
Do the
British people really, seriously, want all of the above?
