After the ‘earthquake’
Micheline Mason of Wandsworth and Merton Left Unity says it is no use writing off UKIP voters as racist fools
I have been thinking about working class people who vote UKIP. I am becoming uncomfortable with their portrayal in the media, where there is confusion between UKIP the party and the people who voted for them. I know these people. I have lived with these people. They are not ‘thick’ and they are not more racist than any other section of society, including the government with its Islamophobic War on Terror.
I think the million or so people who voted for UKIP are trying to say something very important. What they are noticing is that:
• they are sitting on social housing waiting lists for years because there are not enough houses being built to fill the need;
• they do not get their kids into local schools because there are not enough school places provided;
• that no matter how hard they work, they can barely make ends meet;
• that they, or their elderly relatives, have to wait on trolleys in over-stretched Accident & Emergency departments because there are not enough hospital beds provided for the people who need them;
• that many of them go every week to sign on for jobs that don’t exist because there are not enough jobs for everyone who wants one;
• that their elderly or disabled relatives have to rely on them to care for them because there is not enough local authority care for all the people who need it.
They are suffering whilst the wealthy are laughing.
They are thinking that all politicians are dishonest, self-seeking and too rich to give a fuck. They think that our governments cannot govern because we are part of an unaccountable ‘European Project’ which has forced policies of austerity upon us, and over which we have no say as voters. There is much truth in all these things.
Working class people use their logic to work things out. They hear on the news that thousands more poor people are becoming entitled to come and live here, and they know that they will all need jobs, houses, school places, healthcare, and sometimes benefits. They think that we should stop inviting people to come here until the people already here have got a decent standard of living. Many second and third generation immigrants share this view. Although there are racists amongst them, the majority think that it is just a matter of numbers of people and are very hurt by the implication that it is a view based on ignorance and prejudice. They feel that the ignorance and prejudice is coming from the middle-class self-righteous intellectuals towards them in the form of classism. Nigel Farage and the Daily Mail have managed to touch this nerve with great success.
Unfortunately, the conclusion too many such people are making is that if you cut down the numbers of people coming into the country, that will lead to there being more houses, jobs, schools, etc for everyone. It seems like just plain common sense. But of course it will not lead to any such thing, as many other people have come to realise.
We must remember that the vast majority did not vote for UKIP. The big problem was that there was no alternative to UKIP so most people did not vote at all. Those who wanted a different solution had no one to vote for. Not one single mainstream party was saying we will renationalise our key services and industries; we will create many thousands of secure public sector jobs; we will build enough council houses for everyone who needs one; we will introduce rent controls; we will stop the privatisation of the health and education services and fund them properly; we will do something about redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor; we will restore a decent social security system; we will protect and support sick and disabled people instead of demonising them; we will care for the environment and create a more sustainable economy. Or to be more accurate, no party who was saying any of this, such as the Green Party or any of the smaller ‘left’ parties, got a fraction of the airtime needed to counter the political tsunami coming from the right.
If one of the ‘Big Three’ mainstream parties had been saying any of this the ‘earthquake’ might have taken a very different direction by attracting the silent dissenters to the ballot box.
Meanwhile, those of us in LU who struggle for a sustainable and compassionate society will not empower the working class (or the ‘Precariat’) by treating UKIP voters like racist fools. That will only make people more defensive and less able to re-evaluate their understanding – not of the problem (they eat, breathe and sleep that), but of the solution. Instead we need to embark on a grassroots programme of political education for all, starting with understanding the nature of capitalism itself and how it inevitably leads to inequality.
13 comments
13 responses to “After the ‘earthquake’”
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Spot on
Spot on Micheline. We should not confuse UKIP with the BNP reduce the views of all their voters to Farage or any of his more extreme candidates. I also think it is facile to brand anyone who is for some immigration controls as a racist. Yes at the end of the day controlling immigration has a racist logic (who decides who is allowed to work and live somewhere – should it be an accident of where you are born?). If this were the case the Labour party are all racists, which would be a silly position. Owen Jones made a good point about mainstream politicians being completely unrepresentative sociologically of working people. Huge numbers of Labour MPs are just products of political think tanks or advisorships and have never done a proper job in their lives.
This is the best analysis and explanation I have seen. Simply demonising UKIP support as racist makes us all feel better but does nothing to undermine their support where their populism finds an echo in the working class and lower middle class. Those are our people who are being hijacked by the right wing, with neo-fascists prowling in the shadows. As well as everything Micheline says, the left need a unified, pan-European front to fight for a democratic united Europe. Greens, Syriza etc…
Micheline’s comments hit several nails on the head. It is almost always the case that when times are hard the tendency is to look for a scapegoat. This time UKIP and the Tories have chosen immigrants and Europe. For the Tories this is, in part, an attempt to deflect attention from their divisive policies that only seem to be working because of the support from the overwhelmingly right wing press. UKIP, on the other hand, is a two trick pony with no coherent policies other than those they have been banging on about for years. The media, including the BBC which ought to know better, never asks UKIP about the yawning chasm where their policies on the economy, taxation, the NHS, education etc. ought to be. Labour seems to be afraid of its own shadow and is blindly following the far right down the anti-immigration and anti-Europe route and seems not to realise that they can not out nasty the Nasty Party. Anyone who wants nasty will vote Tory. The problem for any non mainstream group in trying to get across the sort of coherent approach set out by Micheline is that the media, big corporations and mainstream politicians don’t want to hear. The trick is going to be to get the large number of left leaning groups to come together, stop raining on each others parade and start speaking with a common voice. It has, unfortunately, been the history of such groups that they often seem more concerned with scoring points against each other than in tackling the real enemy. Remember the Judaean Peoples’ Front and the Peoples’ Front of Judea. Maybe Left Unity’s key role is to get these groups acting together, ideally as one organisation.
I certainly do agree that most of the people who voted for UKIP are in no sense UKIP supporters, any more than those who voted for the BNP a few years ago were all neo-Nazis. Very few of them could have had the slightest idea what UKIPs policies on anything were, if only because they don’t know themselves – you’ll recall Farage admitting on TV that he didn’t know what was in their last manifesto!
It’s pretty appalling how the media have talked UKIP up recently, basically because it makes a good story in a dull and largely irrelevant election. And as for the “earthquake”, there really hasn’t been one: what happened is that those who were most aggravated by the abject failure of the main parties to even look like they wanted to represent the interests of ordinary people were more likely to vote than those who aren’t doing too badly – not much of a shock there!
Only about 33% of those registered to vote actually did so (compared to about 60% in General Elections) and UKIP got less than a third of those, so under 10%. Then there are all the people who are so cynical about the whole political process that they aren’t even on the Electoral Register, maybe 10-15% of over-18s, which reduces UKIPs percentage even further.
Of course, this also show up the other parties in the same way: the reality for some time has been that less than half of adults ever vote for anyone and that’s where Left Unity comes in. There is a massive pool of angry and cynical people waiting for some one to come along and give them something to believe in and be part of. Our job is to be that party!
This analysis hits the themes that draw working class people to vote UKIP, although I disagree that the EU has been the driving force of austerity in this country and I don’t think this is a widely held view. That said the implicit conclusion is bang on – and one that is immediately clear when talking to UKIP supporters – that the key argument is an economic one that has to be won over what has become the mainstream logic of a state that is spending more than it can afford (on people it can’t afford to sustain). This is easier said than done in the context of tabloid economics – and will require an infrastructure to be built up of accessible alternative media and analysis.
I agree with the gist of what is said in this about people working it out for themselves and getting UKIP as their logical answer.I agree that education and representation are crucial to shift this concerning consequence. It is also essentialto consider some people are racist bigots, and fascists are not always lost little sheep, and that Libertarians are an active and nefarious lot. I would also like to see Left Unity and the TUSC and the Greens find common ground under a workable constitution, and represent a united alternative to Labour. That would be an excellent process towards education and effective representation.
Excellent intervention, Micheline.
This is the clearest analysis on this issue that I have read
Our understanding of the background causal deep despair and powerlessness and manipulation by the mass media, of the UKIP voters, and the undoubted truth that the creation of a large dynamic radical party of the socialist Left to offer real solutions to the current lack of housing, job opportunities,welfare provision, etc, would attract some UKIP voters away from Far Right political allegiance, should not delude us about the general nature of UKIP voters.
UKIP voters are a very mixed bag – but they are generally the most ideogically dominated by the most extreme aspects of the most reactionery features of bourgeois ideology – eg, national chauvinism, racism, belief in the eternal nature of capitalism, monarchism, anti socialism, etc. The working class cohort of the UKIP vote is NOT made up of former left wing Labour voters, but of the traditional working class Tory – bedrock of the large reactionery Tory vote for generations – often know as the “lumpen proletariat”- and in all social crisis a vital component of fascist movements. This is not in any way to deny tht we on the Left need to try to recruit from this deeply reactionery social grouping, but I’m afraid very few will be won over – not unless we embrace the core “offer” of UKIP, racism – in the form of a deep hostility to “immigrants” – and in most cases a generalised hostility to ALL non “White British” inhabitants of this island. This would be a divisive concession to reactioney poltics we can never make – so most UKIP voters are forever lost to us I’m afraid.
We can understand the social and ideological basis for UKIP support, certainly. But in the overwhelming majority of cases the typical UKIP voter will alays be our sworn idelogical enemy – regardess of the social class from which they sping. We need to orient our political message outwards to the millions of people , from a wide ethnic background, who are open to the progressive multicultural, internationalist socialit message – not waste our time ” sympathising” with the most reactionery segment of the working class, who voted Tory, then BNP, now UKIP – and will in the main NEVER vote for a radical socialist party not prepared to play the divisive scapegoating, petty nationalist, card.
Whilst I agree with some of what you say John – I have relatives who probably fall into that category – not all voted Tory. Some still had the nous to realise that the Tory party never did anything for them and in past times would vote Labour or not vote at all, in the times when Labour would deliver something for them. According to Ashcroft’s polling, over half of UKIP’s votes were disaffected Tory voters, so you are probably correct about those.
I think this is an excellent analysis, Micheline. I’m so glad that you have said all this. Thank you.
Spot on. Glad someone managed to articulate this.