13/06/2013
I could not resist
this: "there may well be less to Nigel Farage than many of us think". Perhaps it would be too unkind to say that one should delete "may" and substitute "is", but there has been a degree of over-hype to the Farage bandwagon, and a distinct lack of performance from the leader of Britain's only dedicated eurosceptic party.
Don't get me wrong. We need a eurosceptic party. If one didn't exist, we would have to invent one, as other countries are beginning to discover. But we also need a party that can deliver. And
The Guardian's Tim Bale may well be closer to the truth than many would care to admit.
In Farage we have a man who very recently, to
a cheering crowd, called for an EU referendum "now", without the first idea of how he would fight it, much less win it â if indeed it can be won.
Bale's analysis is not new though. We expect UKIP to take the electorate by storm during the euro-elections, topping the 16.5 percent it achieved in 2009. And it will hold on to rather more of its support at the following general election than it managed in 2010, when it lost more than 80 percent of its vote-share from the year before.
But then, if the coalition lasts that long, people will be deciding who governs, not sending a message. And they'll be voting under first-past-the-post and in much greater numbers, as well as in the light of UKIP councillors and MEPs probably making less of a difference than they hoped, says Bale.
That is the received wisdom, but UKIP does have the capacity to shock, so we could be seeing more, rather than less of this "protest party". Yet, even if there any gains, UKIP will still be hard put to get any MPs elected. It may simply wreck the europhile ambitions of Mr Cameron, and open the way for Mr Miliband's party, which currently refuses to offer a referendum.
Ironically, the net effect of UKIP would then be to stop us having a referendum that we cannot win. That much is better than nothing, as it avoids the destruction of the eurosceptic movement for a generation. On the other hand, if Mr Farage had the wit to devise a plan for winning a referendum, Tim Bale would not get away with what he is saying. That, though, would require from Mr Farage substance, rather than rhetoric. And that is not yet on offer.
Sadly, "bums on seats" remains Farage's only strategy. He wants MEPs in place and then he really does hope to take Westminster by storm. But just supposing he gets some (it could only be a few) MPs at the general? Where will that take him? By that time, there are three possibilities ... a Labour party in office, a weak Tory party or another coalition ... which could be Lib-Lab. Where does Mr Farage then exert his influence to get us out of the EU? What is his plan?
And this is what troubles me. For twenty years or more, Farage's ambition has focused on Westminster. He wants to split the Tories and create a new parliamentary party comprising the right "rump" and UKIP, thence to form a majority to take us out of the EU. That is the full extent of his strategy. He has no other plan. That's it.
Thus, the whole of Farage's effort is devoted to winning elections. He has no other objectives. And his thoughts do not extend past the point where he puts a timescale to the process and asks whether, in any of our lifetimes, we will actually see an anti-EU majority in the House of Commons. He just assumes it will happen if he keeps pushing.
Meanwhile, under his nose, he we see the emergence of a referendum movement. This came from outside UKIP. Sir James Goldsmith started it. It was never in Farage's game plan. Belatedly, he has jumped on that bandwagon, and calls for a referendum "now", but without any great conviction. Perhaps he knows that the chances of winning are slight. Certainly, he has never sketched out any plans for securing a victory.
Possibly, though, the only realistic option we have, which might see us leave, is the referendum route. But, if that is going to happen, that is where the focus needs to be - even if it is only a contingency. We need a game plan to win a referendum.
But the one-trick pony simply doesn't want to know. As he piles on the pounds and smokes and drinks his way to a heart attack, he leads his adoring members into a cul-de-sac of his unrealistic, half-thought-out ambition. Thereby, unwittingly, he is doing his best to ensure the failure of the entire eurosceptic movement.
Come to think of it, Tim Bale is wrong. There is more to Farage than most people think: blind ambition and an absolute determination to fail. And that is why this blog cannot support UKIP under the leadership of Farage. The man his leading his followers over the edge of a cliff, towards oblivion.
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