05/04/2014
While Farage
pontificates
about drug policy in Portugal, tuition fees and sundry matters that have nothing to do with the EU â with "hard" EU issues carefully excluded - the media
claque continues to prattle on about TGL's great victory. Meanwhile, we are slowly losing the war.
Slid out by the BBC yesterday was news of an
opinion poll from
Populus on EU sentiment. It had some 35 percent of those surveyed voting to remain in the EU if there were an immediate referendum today, with only 32 percent would voting to leave (27 percent undecided and six percent saying they would not vote).
The poll was taken on 2 and 3 April, partly in the aftermath of Clegg-Farage debate, and is now the third consecutive poll which has the "inners" in the majority".
In the
YouGov poll for 9-10 March, we saw the writing on the wall, with the "inners" claiming a 41-39 percent majority and then, on 26 March
we get reported (again from
YouGov) a strengthening lead of 42-36 percent.
Now we get the
Populus poll â a different polling company â and it confirms the lead, unequivocally indicating that, if there was an immediate referendum, we would lose, before even the
status quo effect was taken into account.
Last year, Peter Kellner
was remarking on the closing of the gap, publishing a graph (below) showing us delivering "outer" majorities in excess of 20 points through 2011 and 2012. The turning point came with David Cameron's speech in January last year, and the "out" campaign has since failed to recover its momentum.
The remarkable thing about the current poll though is that, apart from the BBC, none of the legacy media seem to have published it. With chatter about the "UKIP surge" having become the narrative, the fact that the anti-EU movement is losing the war seems to have passed them by.
The one exception to this is the
New Statesman, which was recently asking whether Nigel Farage was hurting the eurosceptic cause.
Remarking on what it called the "Nigel Farage paradox", it noted that, the more that UKIP's media profile, poll rating and party membership had grown over the last two years, the more that support for the party's core mission â that Britain should leave the EU â seems to have shrunk.
Here, I would be by no means the only one to have observed that, in its bid to become more electable, UKIP is gradually sliding away from its anti-EU agenda, seeking to demonstrate that it is no longer a single-issue party.
But even that is not working. The latest
long-range projection gives UKIP no seats at the next general election and a mere ten percent of the vote. Thus, the electoral model carved out by Farage is set for failure once more. There is simply no realistic prospect that UKIP will ever be able to force a decision through the Westminster ballot box.
Meanwhile, the core mission has been neglected to such an extent that the party has failed to deliver a credible EU exit plan. That leaves us with a legacy of declining popular support for leaving the EU, with those who want to stay in the EU currently forming the majority of those who declare a preference.
The one possible saving grace is that 27 percent of the electorate is in the "undecided" camp, so there is everything to play for. However, in chasing after unattainable victory in the general election, UKIP is not even in the game. And as long as Farage pursues his failed (and failing) electoral model, we can have little confidence that anything is going to change in a hurry.
With UKIP thus vacating the battlefield, its members impotent spectators in the continuing battle, many of us are asking whether we are going to have to carry on the fight without it.
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