Corking the void
Left Unity supporter Iram Awan comments on the local council elections
In the local council elections this week UKIP won a staggering number of seats. Apparently this was the biggest surge by a fourth party on these shores since the second world war. Naturally this sends chills down the spines of many on the left who see a rightist party based on a nebulous aversion to Europe and immigration gaining ground in the political sphere. Whilst this is extremely worrying, could this by any stretch of the imagination be construed in a more positive light?
For a start what this result unequivocally shows is that people are tired. Tired of a system which ceased being a genuine platform resulting in representational policies, but instead had long ago morphed into a rigged carnival trick in which shooting any plastic duck always resulted in the same booby prize.
This change began with the ascension of the Liberal Democrats in the last election. People it seemed had somewhat awoken from their torpor of political imagination and realised that there was actually another option other than interminably swinging between the two main parties on a pendulum whose arc became smaller with each passing year. Once this noose of bicameral party politics loosened its stranglehold, the Lib Dems formed a coalition with the Conservatives; the two parties theoretically so diametrically opposed (the clue is in their names) with such a huge power imbalance, it was akin to a pacifist Buddhist joining the EDL hoping his peace loving ways osmotically dispersed within the ranks thereby diffusing any unpleasantness. A strategy so insane for the Lib Dems future generations studying history will surely look upon it as the signing of a political suicide note.
One would be forgiven for thinking that the British public, disgusted by the result of their foray out of dualist politics would have resigned themselves to another round of the pendulum. However this recent election result has shown otherwise. It shows a searching and yearning for something different. At the moment this searching has led to clutching at straws and the subsequent surge of UKIP. In my constituency there was no option on the left whatsoever. Not a single option which a sane voter could mark an optimistic cross against. Nature abhors a vacuum, so it is any wonder this gaping hole was filled by opportunists on the right? People are finally willing to vote for an alternative, it is our job to provide them with this.
Many on the left tend to be jaded and resigned to remaining on the fringes. However if a fringe party such as UKIP can garner a meteoric rise in such a short space of time on a platform of contraction and suspicion of the other, then surely the Left on a platform of universal healthcare, housing, education and fair wages which the majority of the populace are behind, can outrun them all. It’s time for the Left to be optimistic in what it can achieve and to cork the void and be the alternative.
5 comments
5 responses to “Corking the void”
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In politics its about ceasing the moment in the long term or short term .The latter in my view being the case with UKIP.Farrage & his like ceased upon the fact that here was a political moment to strike ,tories in government trying to look both ways at the sametime on europe & imigration . UKIP picked up on their political weakness ,stayed on message with it to the right wing tory activist /voter & it hit the political target & the political fruits of doing so are evident for all to see .
The key factor in the longterm is when UKIP ,has to go bigger picture (more than two issues) the weakness being that is where the political void is in terms of policy etc ,time will tell if its political life span is short or long.
The radical left can learn some lessons from UKIPS surge ,those being identify the political soft spots ,vulnerable areas around your opponents (labour mostly) hit home on key areas stay on message despite the muck & bullets coming your way & lets not forget LU would have a far broader set of core issues to target (than just two) & its getting the timing correct to reasonate with those who will get behind what you say as many are disenfranchised from politics as the two party machines contrive to spin & counter spin against each other ,they dont see the political rug being removed from under there feet.
UKIP realised a very key important point as well hit at local level & build from there .
LU can & should take much comfort from UKIPS surge & apply your radical politics accordingly & ensure your timing is correct & cease OUR moment !
Peter……………..
Yes, the fast rise of UKIPas an electoral force , and the previous significant 15 year rise of the BNP before its organisational implosion, are solid indicators that the traditional three party logjam of postwar British politics is slowly starting to come apart as the economic crisis really starts to bite, and the major parties quite obviously have no idea how to solve it – other than to get the ordinary citizen to make massive sacvrifices – to provide ever greater wealth to the superrich.
However, a very major factor driving the current UKIP leap forward as the party of generally right wing or perhaps sometimes simply confused and disenchanted, protest voting, which Left Unity simply cannot expect to mirror, is the vast deluge of mass media propaganda, day in, day, out, feeding all the main platforms of bigotry , and fear, that UKIP feeds on. This phobic menu of irrational fear includes – petty nationalism, EU phobia, anti immigrant racism, fear of the entire population of Bulgaria decamping to Britain overnight, scapegoating of “welfare scroungers”, etc, etc. All UKIP has to do is “ride the wave” of misinformed phobic public panic on these issues that the popular media has whipped up – with very little need for much of a grass roots organisation at all .
Left Unity will never be able to ride a similar mass media created wave of awareness and anger about the real issues which impact on ordinary people – the destruction of the NHS, the large scale escape from taxation of the entire class of rich and big corporations, the strangling of local government and all other local welfare services, the widespread and increasing corruption and cronyism in British public life, the destruction of our manufacturing base, The disastrous ,Most of Britain versus London and the South East, regional prosperity divide, etc, etc.
Our growth will therefore never be as meteoric as UKIP’s – and will depend on much more “bottom up” locaL organisation , AND dissemination of information about the real reasons for, and impact of, the Austerity Offensive. Nevertheless, despite the massive propaganda offensive by the mass media to create “straw men” bogymen to distract the average citizen from the source of their increasing impoverishment, it is encouraging to see indicators of a large groundswell of radical oppositional awareness growing . Some of the indicators of this growing resistance are quite impressionistic, but nevertheless significant, eg, the 500,000 signatories to the petition demanding that Duncan Smith try and live on a typical benefit payment. The 8,000 or so people who have expressed agreement with the objects of the Left Unity initiative is also obviously significant. This is in addition to the myriad of campaigns, marches, mobilisatiomns across the UK pretty much all the time now against small and large manifestations of the austerity offensive.
If we can ride, build, mobilise/cohere, these progressive waves of popular resistance, over time we can have a much more profound impact on the political process in Britain than the dodgy fly by night shady, barroom bigots and blusterers of UKIP.
UKIP political imbeciles setting citizens against new immigrants for political gain. They distract some working people from the rich & powerful . Millionaires who have just got £108,000 extra become invisible as they are distant from people’s lives. Rosa Luxemburg warned of the dangers of nationalism against internationalism, The EC has always been a top down capitalist club and perhaps we should be arguing for an EC wide consultation of citizens seeking their ideas for buidings a working people’s Europe from below. THE REAL DEPEDENCY CULTURE is that of the rich & the powerful – every day they must pray that the working billions will turn up to work to create the wealth and to make societies wotk.
We need to build international solidarity.
If the mainstream media fairly debated universal healthcare, housing and fair wages rather than skewing and diverint the debate via the so called imegration issue then I think we’d have seen a very different election result. Looking forward to seeing you on the telly and reading your views in the papers x
I think you are right that people are desperately looking for an alternative. Yes, some wrongly thought the Liberals were offering something different at the last general election. Some think that UKIP, by pulling out of the EU, will give them more control & improve their lives, but they don’t understand that it’s capitalism that’s the problem, not immigrants.
This is the message that the Left needs to repeat again & again – it’s not the immigrants, it’s capitalism!
There really is no point saying to the white working class in places like Lincolnshire & Essex that immigration is a good thing & it’s great we’ve got so many. Mass immigration isn’t natural, it’s part of capitalism. It’s part of British capital’s desire to keep wages low & workers disciplined. Workers, both British-born & immigrants, need to fight capitalism together.