...but to be old was very Essex

Some thoughts in the wake of the by-election results in Clacton and in Heywood and Middleton, with the impressive results for UKIP...

One of the joys of posing as a historian is that it kind of absolves you from the need to predict the future - that's someone else's territory. But fortune-telling is all the rage at times like these, so I thought I'd better have a go at it myself. Or rather, I thought I'd dust off some of my previous predictions and see if they still stand up (in my eyes).

After the European elections earlier this year, I said that I thought UKIP had reached its peak level of support at around 4.35 million votes. If you hadn't voted for them on that occasion, I reckoned, you were unlikely to do so in the 2015 general election. I still think that's true. For the last couple of years, UKIP have been enjoying high turnouts while supporters of the established parties have had a tendency to stay at home. This is likely to be reversed in the general election.

But I'd also restate the same proviso that I made in May: UKIP could do a whole lot better if they changed their leader. Nigel Farage has won as much support as he's ever going to; if you've not been convinced by him yet, you won't be in the next six months either. But now - for the first time since the frabjous days of Robert Kilroy Silk - there exists a potential rival for the leadership in the shape of Douglas Carswell. It's too late to change before the election, but I would assume that by this time next year Farage won't be the leader.

(Incidentally, I wish commentators would stop talking about a swing to UKIP in Clacton. Our constituency system is based on the premise - or at least the pretence - that we vote for individuals, not parties. So Carswell's share of the vote went up from 53 per cent to 60 per cent, while he lost 1,750 actual votes.)

My prediction for UKIP in the general election was 2.5 million votes and fewer than five seats. On sober reflection, I now think that might creep up to eight seats, but I still think five more likely. Which would make them the sixth largest party in the House of Commons. I still expect David Cameron to be the prime minister.

But all of this might seem to run counter to another post on this blog two years ago, when I wrote about my conviction that the political system as it stands is unsustainable. 'New political forces will emerge, whether within the existing parties or outside of them,' I wrote. 'It feels to me that there is a parallel with the 1970s, and that things are about to change quite radically.'

That does still seem to me to be the case. The parties as they currently exist are clearly inadequate. But I don't think UKIP are yet a significant element, save perhaps to hasten the change. Under Farage, they're a symptom of uncertain times, not the future. The psephologists I've heard all talk about UKIP's support being disproportionately comprised of the old and the academically unqualified, a finding that chimes with the radio phone-ins to which I listen with such enthusiasm. That's not the basis for a major national party. It's not an image that inspires converts, as Carswell's acceptance speech at Clacton seemed to indicate; he didn't sound overly enthused by the company he's now keeping.

So maybe UKIP do well enough next year that they decide to present a serious challenge. They change their leader, change their identity and become a coherent - if hard-right - party. I still think Cameron can win an outright majority, but if not and he has to cobble together a new coalition that excludes UKIP, there will be unhappy Tory MPs who could defect. And there'd be even more unhappy Tories after a European referendum, when a majority of the country decide that they don't want to be associated with UKIP and vote to stay in the EU. On balance, I think UKIP are likely to recruit more defectors in the next parliament than in this.

It's also perfectly possible that we see the dissolution of the LibDems, with the party effectively being absorbed into a Euro-friendly Conservative Party on the one side and into Labour on the other. Which would result in a new two-and-a-half-party arrangement on the old model, but now with Tory, Labour and UKIP, the centre of politics having moved more decisively to the right

And yet that's not sustainable either, because the country is not moving to the right at all. It feels to me as though there's a strong centre-left consensus waiting to be built.

And in this context, I should be clear that my point about 'new political forces' did not necessarily refer to new parties. I pointed out that the last time there was this much dissatisfaction in the country, it resulted in Margaret Thatcher staging a coup within the Conservative Party. And still, above everything else, the most frustrating thing in modern British politics is that fact that Labour Party have missed so comprehensively their opportunity to articulate a new vision for the party in the same way that Thatcher did for hers.

This is not - not this time - a criticism of Ed Miliband. It's a criticism of Tony Blair. The possibilities that were open to Blair in the late-1990s, before he got into invading other countries, were almost limitless. All squandered, all lost. It'd be nice to think that a new populist party of the left could emerge, but it doesn't seem very likely somehow - the chance has gone.

In short, something's going to change. But I'm a historian and I have no idea what. There's no point coming here looking for predictions.

How Cameron could neuter UKIP and win the general election

Obviously the fact that Britain has decided it's time to go out bombing again is the bigger news story, but the defection of Mark Reckless to UKIP is still a major problem for David Cameron. It's really not a good look when your own MPs decide to abandon you, particularly on the eve of your conference.

On the other hand, it being the eve of conference means that Cameron has the opportunity next week to make a grand statement against UKIP in an attempt to stop the rot (in all senses).

But there's no point in imagining that dog-whistles on immigration and multiculturalism will be sufficient. That's territory that UKIP are always going to claim as their own. Instead, the real weak link in UKIP's armour is, oddly enough, Europe itself. Most people don't care much about the issue, but some do, they care very much indeed and - from a Conservative perspective - they're a worryingly significant minority. Cameron's offer of a referendum gained him a little time, but by now the UKIP response has clawed back some of the initiative; you can't trust his promises, goes the argument, look at the betrayal over the Lisbon Treaty.

So Cameron should take the opportunity at conference to do the one thing that only he, and not Nigel Farage, can do: announce the exact date on which the referendum will be held.

He's already said that it'll be before the end of 2017, but that's still too vague. There is a round of local elections due on Thursday 4 May 2017. That'd be a good date to choose.

Announce now that, in the event of a Tory, or Tory-led, government, an In/Out referendum will be held on that specific date, and suddenly the airy promise becomes concrete reality. He'd seize the initiative entirely. Every front-page would have a graphic of a calendar showing 4 May 2017. Eurosceptic commentators and Tory backbenchers would be delighted; Europhiles would reluctantly have to accept the concept of democracy.

It would leave Cameron no wriggle-room, of course, but the reality is that he can't afford the luxury of wriggle-room anymore; the UKIP threat is too great. He needs to squash comprehensively the impression that somehow he'll twist and turn and renege on his promise.

For those Tory voters tempted to desert because of Europe, there would no longer be any incentive to their votes elsewhere. Farage isn't, and never will be, able to match such a pledge. As long as it's credible, it would trump any card UKIP can possibly play. Which would leave UKIP to carry on making inroads into the Labour vote, where its appeal isn't rooted in the European issue in the first place.

Obviously there will still be disgruntled Tories, but their real bone of contention is with having a pro-European leader in the first place. And if they want to change that, they need to mount a more efficient challenge. Which they would undoubtedly lose, because there is no plausible Eurosceptic alternative to Cameron, and they've already tried - with Iain Duncan Smith - having an implausible one. Much good that did them.

I'm also fairly certain that in such a referendum, Britain would vote to remain in the EU. And since that's the result the EU would want, it will swiftly get over its cries of outrage and start working to ensure that some concessions - however cosmetic - are made in order to strengthen Cameron's hand.

In the (unlikely) event that Cameron does not emerge from the general election as prime minister, the referendum presumably wouldn't happen. And that in itself would be a nice legacy for Cameron's successor. S/he can still make a big deal of 4 May 2017, using it as a rallying-point against Ed Miliband's by-then beleaguered government. The Day That Democracy Forgot would make a nice slogan.

It'd be a big step for Cameron, who isn't a notably adventurous politician. But things are getting tight and it's time for a bold move. Played right - with sufficient statesmanlike gravitas - it could be decisive. It would lose him no support whatsoever and would bring sufficient numbers of disaffected Tory votes back into the fold to ensure victory in the general election.

The embers next time

A final (maybe) word on UKIP and the fallout from the European elections...

The Daily Telegraph reports a poll suggesting '86 per cent of people who voted for Nigel Farage’s party will do so again next year'. I'm not sure this is a particularly valid reading of the poll (commissioned, incidentally, by UKIP's financial backer Paul Sykes). What the poll results actually show is that 37 per cent will 'certainly' vote UKIP at the next general election, and 49 per cent said they were 'likely' so to do. I think we can assume that a fair chunk of that second group shouldn't be taken for granted.

But let's start by taking the Telegraph interpretation at face value. That would give UKIP the votes of 3.76 million people at a general election. A very impressive result, four times as large as the vote they got in 2010. And if the Lib Dem support collapses from the 6.8 million achieved last time, it might be enough to put UKIP in third place in the popular vote - though almost certainly not in number of seats.

On the basis of this poll, there are Conservative MPs and some rightwing commentators (such as Simon Heffer) suggesting that the Conservatives need to make some kind of electoral pact with UKIP.

This would be a mistake for UKIP. The point of a third party in the British electoral system is to provide a repository for protest votes from across the political and class spectrum. As soon as such a party does a deal with one of the two major parties, it removes a large chunk of that support. That's the problem the Lib Dems are now suffering from. All those who cast a vote for the Lib Dems from the left now feel like they were betrayed. That would have been mirrored - to a slightly smaller extent - on the right if the party had gone into coalition with Labour. Why would UKIP want to drive away those voters who want nothing to do with the Tories?

And for the Tories? A governing party doing a deal with a party that has no MPs hardly looks like a statement of strength. Heffer argues that a precedent exists with the relationship between the Conservatives and the National Liberals in 1951, but it's not very convincing. Apart from it all being a long time ago, in a different political world, the Tories were then in opposition, and the National Liberals had sixteen MPs to bring to the feast. Oh, and the Conservative Party was led by Winston Churchill - the electorate didn't believe for a second that he was a dog that any tail would wag. To put it mildly, David Cameron is not as convincing a leader.

Some sort of electoral deal between the Tories and the Lib Dems is possible, but not between the Tories and UKIP. Which, despite all their denials, leaves the latter as a passing protest.

In the excited heat of the moment, comparisons are being made in some quarters between UKIP and the SDP/Liberal Alliance three decades ago. But the Alliance got around 7.5 million votes in 1983 and in 1987. That's well out of reach. Here's my guess for the 2015 election. UKIP will get around 2.5 million votes and fewer than five MPs (quite possibly none at all).

The tide is high

So that's the election to the European Parliament pretty much done and dusted for another four years. The final results from Scotland and all of those from Northern Ireland have yet to come in, but they're not going to make much difference to the UKIP vote, which turns out to be around 4.35 million people, pretty much where I said they should have been.

This is the important figure: not the share of the vote, but the raw number of voters. Because, while many, many more people will turn out for each of the three main parties in a general election, this is high tide for UKIP - if you didn't vote for them last Thursday, you're unlikely to do so next year.

Unless, of course, the party changes radically. If UKIP is to get any further, it's going to have to make greater inroads into old Labour territory. And that probably means thanking Nigel Farage for all he's done, but telling him that he's gone as far as he can. A bit like Ian Holloway, he might get you promoted to the Premier League, but he won't keep you there. Or you could see him as the Moses of politics, the man chosen to lead his people back to their promised land but destined not to take the final step himself. But that's a tad heroic, as a comparison.

In any event, it's time for Farage to lay down his burden. UKIP needs to change if it's to mean anything. Now if they could recruit Alan Johnson and make him leader...

Just as a postscript, it's a pleasure to see erstwhile Mail Online blogger, Janice Atkinson-Small, elected as a UKIP MEP. At last, one of the great heroes of this blog is to get a decent income from the state.

Quaking

It's 'a political earthquake', according to Nigel Farage. Well, er, up to a point. As I write this, not all the results have been declared in the local council elections, but the majority are in. And of the 2,886 seats announced so far, UKIP have taken just under five per cent of them. Not really time just yet to go back to your constituencies to prepare for government.

Vote, vote, vote for Nigel (Barton)

I love election day. Even when it's only for members of the European Parliament, an occasion that's always spoiled a bit by not getting the results until the following Sunday.

So I've been out to do my voting and was somewhat surprised to find that there were other parties putting up candidates apart from UKIP. Judging by the coverage in the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph (the two papers I read most frequently), I had thought this was a one-horse race, but it turns out that other people fancy their chances as well.

Last time round, in 2009, UKIP got around 2.5 million votes in the Euro-elections. The BNP got nearly 1 million, most of which - I assume - are now available, while many of the 2 million who voted LibDem (when that party was still in opposition) will also be looking for somewhere else to register a protest. Combined with the blanket media coverage, that means that UKIP should be very disappointed if they fall short of 4 million votes today; and they should be getting around 4.5 million.

And that, I suspect, is going to be their highpoint in their current form. If you don't vote UKIP this time, you're unlikely to do so at a general election next year. There's a chance that they might hit 30 per cent of the vote today, but on a general election turnout the same number of voters would produce around 14 per cent. And even that's optimistic.

Not that UKIP are irrelevant or unimportant. It seems to me that Nigel Farage is asking some very pertinent questions. It's just that UKIP don't have the answers. And nor, unfortunately, do any of the other parties, which is why they're so desperate to shout 'racist' in the hope that the questions aren't heard. This won't work. It will quite possibly restrict the possibility of UKIP support growing any further, but it leaves the problems untouched.

At the heart of those problems, the issue that resonates most strongly is quite clearly not Europe but immigration. And, for those who would like to see a Left alternative in Britain, the question that needs answering is: what benefit does the presence of large numbers of, say, Polish workers in the country bring to the British working class?

The typical Left response is that this is the wrong issue, that it's low wages, bad employment practices and underinvestment in social infrastructure that should really be the focus. Which may well be true, but isn't an answer; it's just telling people that they don't understand their lives well enough to ask the right question.

Nor is it an answer to say that we should celebrate the social diversity brought by immigration. Unless, of course, you can then point to the specific contribution made by those Polish workers. (My apologies for singling out Poles, by the way: it's intended merely as a shorthand, which is how I hear it being used by many of those who are discontented with mainstream politics.)

The real issue for the Left is why it's a rightwing party that's attracting the protest votes of the dissatisfied. The standard allegation is that UKIP are exploiting people's fears, which merely raises further questions: Is 'exploit' the correct word, or should it be 'articulate'? Is it fear or dislike?

We've been here before, of course. In fact we've been here for the last fifty years, and the tactic has always been to stifle dissent. 'Every year the head office gets a lot of resolutions for the union's annual conference from branches all over the country which are stongly colour prejudiced,' a TGWU official noted in 1968. 'The senior officers see to it that none of them comes up in debate.' The same year, Jeremy Isaacs, then a producer on Panorama, admitted: 'Television programmes deliberately underplayed the strength of racist feelings for years, out of the misguided but honourable feeling that inflammatory utterances could do damage.'

The significance of those comments coming in 1968 was that that was the year of Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood' speech. Isaacs added: 'The way feelings erupted after Enoch Powell's speech this year was evidence to me that the feeling has been under-represented on television, and other media.'

Powell's last contribution to British politics came in 1993 when he spoke on behalf of Alan Sked in the Newbury by-election. The man deputed to give him a lift to and from the constituency on that occasion was Nigel Farage. So inspired was Farage by Powell's arguments during their journey that he resolved to dedicate himself to a career in politics. Two decades later, and he seems to be doing alright for himself.

The fact that we seem to be going round and round the same issue decade after decade might be perceived as being a little depressing. So, to end on a cheery note: a fortnight after the 'rivers of blood', a poll found that 74 per cent of the British population supported Powell's views on immigration. If that were still the case, then Farage would be doing a whole lot better than he is.

He's your yesterday man

What a pleasure it was to hear Nick Griffin again on Radio 5 Live this morning. I'd forgotten he was still with us, indeed that he's still an MEP (for another week at least).

If dictionaries could talk, their definition of a busted flush would sound just like Griffin did today. Hard to remember how big a bogeyman he was just five years ago, when the BNP were on the rise.

As one might imagine, there was no attempt on the part of Nicky Campbell to conceal his loathing of Griffin in the interview (and I use the word loosely), but it felt a bit like kicking a blind beggar. The BNP thunder has long since been stolen by UKIP, and Griffin was just flailing wildly as he sinks into irrelevance.

One of the few points he managed to get in, during his allotted three minutes, was a claim that the BNP's poll ratings had gone up after he appeared on BBC One's Question Time in 2009. Having just checked, it's clear that he's not entirely lying, though there is an element of exaggeration.

Which reminded me of Nigel Farage on Question Time last week. That appearance provoked complaints on Twitter and elsewhere about how much airtime the UKIP leader was getting, but the reason for that was simple: all the other panellists had decided to gang up on him. Just as they did against Griffin five years ago. And if the response to someone as personally unappealing as Griffin was to increase his poll ratings, what is the likely effect when the same tactic is applied to Farage?

It seems that no one learns. If a fringe politician makes as his central appeal a claim to be against the establishment, then it does him no harm at all when the establishment behaves in such a way as to demonstrate that point for him on national television.

Clegg-Farage - The View from the Stalls

I was in the studio audience for the BBC's Nigel Farage vs Nick Clegg debate this evening. It was an irritating and disappointing experience.

To start with, even by TV standards, the arrangements were self-important. We had to be there for 4.30 pm, two and a half hours before kick-off. Nothing happened in that period except for an absurd level of security. An old man was being given grief because the number on his driving licence had a digit different to the number he'd given when contacted by the silly marketing company who were handling the tickets.

So I was far from gruntled even before we started. I was slightly cheered up by the soundcheck, when the two protagonists were asked what they'd done today. Clegg looked smug as he namedropped that 'actually' he'd met Bill Gates. Farage said he'd failed to live up to his attempt at self-discipline: he tries not to drink till 6 o'clock, but he yielded to temptation and went to the pub at lunchtime.

But then I got annoyed again by the debate itself. I want to believe in the European Union. I want to be convinced that Britain should remain a member. But Clegg, as the most Europhile party leader in the country, has nothing to say except for childish jibes at Farage for being out-of-date and for daring to voice a dissident argument on the Ukrainian crisis.

Clegg says that being in the EU makes us 'richer, stronger and safer'. As opposed to that poverty-stricken, weak, terrorist-infested Switzerland, presumably.

Asked about the philosophical underpinning to his support for the EU, Clegg can offer us only 'jobs, jobs, jobs'. Is that really it? That's not philosophy. That's not a belief. I know there's an economic argument to be made, but if that's all there is, then we might as well give up and leave the EU. It needs something more than that to justify the pooling of sovereignty. (I'm trying to be reasonably neutral in my language.)

Clegg repeats that we have to have a seat at the table if we're going to shape the future of Europe. But we've been a member for over forty years. It's time to point to our achievements. What have we done in all that time to shape Europe? How is the EU different because of our membership? What use have we made of our seat at the table?

I don't know the answers to those questions. And Clegg didn't tell me. Perhaps he doesn't know either. And perhaps that's because we've actually achieved sod all. If so, then maybe we've been wasting our time all these years.

Then there were the bits where Clegg was deliberately lying. He says that being in the EU means that we can negotiate trade deals as part of a big economic power bloc. But if we leave the EU, we'd have to negotiate new deals with each of the 27 member nations. What? They'd stop negotiating as a bloc if we left?

Farage claims that our imports from the EU exceed our exports to the EU and that therefore they'd be keen to do a deal if we left. Clegg's response is that 50 per cent of our exports go to the EU, but only 7 per cent of their exports come to Britain. That's not comparing like with like. That's apples and eggs.

Why is Clegg dissembling and trying to mislead? Is it because the case for Europe is so weak that all he has in his locker are ad hominem attacks on Farage and lies? I hate to think so, but I fear it may be the truth.

I learnt something this evening. I went in wanting to be enthused about Europe. I came out feeling (yet again) that Farage is a likeable buffoon who has some reasonable questions. Sadly, I didn't hear a single answer from Clegg. And he's the one who supports the EU. Piss poor.