The single biggest loser in this totally feckless and unnecessary election was the SNP – losing votes and seats, handsomely losing the former leader Alex Salmond’s seat and that of its Deputy Leader Angus Robertson and 21 out of its 56 seats.Its abrasive leader Sturgeon has had to shelve IndyRef2 until at least after Brexit is concluded. Thus its sole raison d’etre has been scuppered and for its leader to pronounce such a postponement is massively negative and its future must hang in the balance. SNP is by far the most injured. One wonders how it will attract funding.
The Conservatives lost some seats in this self-defeating election and its victory will prove pyrrhic as they gained just enough votes to ensure that yet another election will happen in the foreseeable future.The Prime Minister’s authority has been damaged and it is clear she is not adequate to the task. Luckily for her, her government has now been beefed up by the deeply realistic DUP leader Arlene Foster who I hope will have a major role to play.
Before the election UKIP was suffering a major downturn in support and internal crises with multiple leadership contests. UKIP suffered the opposite of the SNP with its raison d’etre having been vindicated in last year’s referendum. UKIP had spent extravagantly during the 2015 general election and this election was a most unwelcome financial burden. In fact UKIP has competed in elections every year now since 2014 and is financially deflated. UKIP’s only MP resigned and it could not retain the seat without him. Furthermore, UKIP entered into pacts not to stand against pro-Brexit MPs to ensure Brexit would happen. Thus many UKIP voters had no candidate to vote for. UKIP saved the Conservatives and thus Brexit.
UKIP’s crisis is existential rather than parliamentary as is being experienced by all the smaller parties which wax and wane. UKIP was heady during the Jimmy Goldsmith era, then waxed once more from 2010 onward and having won the referendum vote it is waning again, having a limited policy spectrum in the eyes of the public.
The Lib Dems lost Clegg and Olney and couldn’t make ground to re-elect Hughes.They will be treading water at best with no sign of them being influential in Parliament other than as anti-Brexit pressure group.
Let’s look at the chimera, the big mirage of the Labour non-victory. We have all seen the exultant triumphalist ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’-chanting at Glastonbury, borrowed from the football terraces. It signifies nothing for there will be no beginning of a messianic movement. ‘Tis but the emperor’s clothes seen through a miasma of LSD. Labour lost the popular vote and had too few seats to win. It was not a successful campaign and a draw is not victory. Was it acceptable or unimportant to lose by a small margin? If so, Labour is easily pleased! The Labour PR smokescreen is as thin as rice paper and fools only Labour.
UKIP must assert its Brexit vision having kindly given its vote to Brexit MPs. It’s time they returned the favour and sped up the process. UKIP wants Brexit! Enough delay! The PM wasted a year then inflicted a needless election on us all. She is still pussyfooting around. By now there should have been in place a cross-party delegation, in session every week, writing up the arrangements. Instead we have her tedious after dinner speeches going nowhere. Show us the results of your team’s negotiations and spare us the micromanagement. We pay politicians to do this for us! She has turned the Brexit movement into an orgy of debate which our pro-Remain media relishes hoping to thwart Brexit.
The result shows that no one party impressed the voter. It was a big thumbs down. We don’t have referendums very often and we have now been asked twice 45 years apart whether we want to remain in the EU. WE HAVE DECIDED TO LEAVE SO GET ON WITH IT!
Alas UKIP can only work with the players it has and our great orator-in-chief Nigel Farage needs to be permanently on call to speak to large crowds as he has done in Clacton, Grimsby and Doncaster without needing to tag onto any pop star’s tails unlike Corbyn in Glastonbury. Farage can stand alone and is a very valuable asset for whom there is no replacement. He needs to be out there delivering UKIP’S honest straightforward message as Trump did in USA declaring that US jobs had been sacrificed on the altar of globalism. The wave of populism seems to have stopped at Calais and there will be no Trump figure in the Hague, Berlin or Paris.
The British people voted for Brexit out of a sense of powerlessness, of disenfranchisement, and are sick and tired of being told what to do by a self-serving corrupt supranational body lining its own pockets. The British people utterly reject the EU’s ever closer union.Yet despite this clear message we have had not one single benefit from Brexit as we remain firmly tied to the EU solely as a result of the feeble PM’s lack of action. We are stuck with paying billions to EU and housing its vast number of residual citizens and their hangers-on.
UKIP must put out its message that we are not out of the EU yet, and if the media and PM have their way we will never be fully out. Repeal the ECA72 now, then negotiate. Stop EU migrant entry without visa now and use the point system in place for non-EU citizens. Let’s talk fisheries. Let’s wave goodbye to EU trade sanctions.
@ Liz Jones
Nigel promised to return to cause ructions if a real Brexit wasn’t being achieved. Today in Westmonster he said that Brexit is being betrayed, so I’m wondering if he will launch a campaign soon to point out the government’s shortcomings up and down the country and through every form of media. Perhaps he won’t want to do it while the UKIP leadership election is on, but I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting Nigel to voice that war cry of yours: “We Voted to Leave so Get On With It!” Theresa May turned her nose last year up at the thought of him being involved in the talks, but now she’s weakened perhaps she would think better of it, if only to shut him up!
The opportunity for UKIP to “assert its Brexit vision” has been missed. From June 24th last year we had the chance to transition seamlessly from the party of Brexit into the party of Brexit Britain, grabbing swathes of those 17million Brexit voters.
UKIP’s challenge now is not to broaden its appeal to a wider audience, hoping to win Westminster seats. That ship has decisively sailed, if it was ever truly afloat. We will not be winning, or even seriously competing in, elections any time soon.
UKIP’s challenge is existential; we need to attract enough support to survive in the short term, enabling us to rebuild over the next 5-10 years.
This will not be achieved by offering policies on the NHS, economy, schools etc etc. In the last two General Elections UKIP had by far the best, most popular, policies in all these areas, but still won no MPs. People do not vote for a party like UKIP for their general policy manifesto. People don’t vote on manifestos. People don’t read manifestos.
At elections most people vote for the party they consider to be the least worst out of the two that have a chance of winning. Sad, but that’s the reality. People won’t vote for UKIP’s policies because, frankly, they have no idea what they are (thanks to a killer combination of a hostile media and UKIP’s own incompetence). Even if they do know a few of UKIP’s general policies, and support them (e.g. cutting overseas aid), they still wouldn’t vote UKIP as we won’t be in any position to implement them. UKIP’s model thus far simply won’t gain enough voters to break the high threshold of our tribal, two party, First Past The Post electoral system.
UKIP are, in the public consciousness, a single issue party whose single issue has expired. We can come up with the best possible policies, but without our single issue battering ram to grab people’s attention nobody will listen, much less vote for us.
The only available option is to tackle Islam. Like the idea of leaving the EU 20 years ago, Islam is an issue that enough people care passionately about to give the party an enthusiastic core support on which to build. Like leaving the EU, Islam is dismissed as a “single issue”, but actually supports a broader philosophy covering many policy areas (culture, immigration, law and order, economy, education…). Like leaving the EU, criticising Islam will result in abuse from the establishment, but will command mainstream support in the years to come, if it doesn’t already.
Yes, this will involve much disruption and upheaval. People who came to UKIP because they oppose the EU are not necessarily going to care much about or know much about Islam. I would count Nigel Farage as one of those. But it is the only way the party, in tandem with some serious reform and a major relaunch, will survive. More importantly, defending Western civilisation, democracy, law and order and limited immigration are morally right, as well as the route to regaining electoral support.
UKIP needs to be lead by those with the stomach for a new fight over the next decade, or there will be no UKIP to lead. If UKIP don’t take this opportunity, then a new movement or party will be formed to tackle Islam anyway, and will hammer the final nail in UKIP’s coffin.
Gary, I so agree with most of what you have written. All I would point out is that Islam is not just ‘the only available option’ it is the defining challenge of this century. Talk to anyone who has children. They are very afraid. Except that is for the poor kids lumbered with Feminazi parents who have to wave banners saying ‘My Mum is a Slut’. The point is as you say that the whole battle against Islamification encompasses many things that will gain us votes. For instance, ban Halal – people will vote for that! Restore Law and Order – it’s all there – and then there’s the immigration issue tied in. I cannot for the life of me understand why those trying to stop UKIP from becoming,the only Party to offer the public what they want, can’t see it. I am convinced they want UKIP to fail. But why?
What we need is someone with conviction to lead the new UKIP – not people who are fearful and desperate to please.
Times are changing! MSM is a busted flush. The internet, independent radio, Periscope, Utube, all these are replacing it. People are setting up their own forums and opinion formers. If he doesn’t win the Leadership, and of course I hope Anne Marie does, this is where John Rees-Evans will have a crucial role, imo. He has the knowledge and ability to give UKIP the online presence that the current clueless cabal have set their faces so firmly against. I believe even Mr. McWhirter will concede this point – he follows me and does a lot of RT – ing!!
Two small flaws in your plan, Gary.
1. Without electoral support, UKIP won’t last “5-10 years”, let alone go on to any success.
2. If we lead on Islam then we go the way of the BNP.
There is an alternative, if only we had the sense to see it.
If we elect a leader who “leads on Islam”, it won’t be just voters we will loose, it will be entire branches. We know the problems with extremism and most of us don’t want to become part of another group viewed as extremists.
The alternative is to elect a leader that doesn’t lead on Islam. UKIP will then either limp on as a small band of die hard supporters with zero electoral relevance, or will fold completely. If branches aren’t closing or mergeing already, they soon will be.
There is no easy route back to the glory days of the “people’s army”, “purple surge” of 2014. UKIP as currently constituted, as a political party that exists to compete in and win elections, is a busted flush. The party’s only salvation will be to replace Brexit as its core issue with Islam. Yes, some currently in the party will wrongly perceive criticism of Islam as extremist. Personally I find that a handy indicator of dead wood that needs cutting out if the party is to survive (see Bill Etheridge and most MEPs).
Leaving the EU was an issue for extremists 20 years ago. Last year a majority of the population voted for it. Factual criticism of Islam is currently derided as extremist, but has mass popular support already, and that will only grow. The Dutch just held a general election where a party that is pretty much anti-Islam and nothing else secured second place. I’m not sure UKIP are in any position to get sniffy about that kind of popular support, and moreover it is morally the right position to take. If we wait for the Tories or Labour to stand up for Western civilisation we’ll be waiting a long time.
Also, there is no possible UKIP that the media will not brand as extremist or racist. Even if we elected the Archbishop of Canterbury as leader and had policies limited to free apple pie and puppy dogs, the establishment parties and their tame mainstream media would still hate us and smear us. As a UKIP member we are already “extremists” in the eyes of many.
Unquestionably opposing the regressive practices and political ambitions of Islam will draw heavy fire. But that just tells me it’s the right thing to do, and what’s the point of a UKIP that won’t say what needs to be said?
We will say what has to be said Gary, and yes the MSM will blacken us anyway.
But that’s all the more reason to lead on other things (the economy), so we have more chance of getting heard.
@ Gary Conway
Two excellent posts, Gary. Yes, those glory days of 2014 are gone. The euphoria of 2016 was dampened by months and months of fighting rearguard action against the Remainers and that battle continues. All we had was T May to trust Brexit to, and she shot herself in the foot. Two leaders since Nigel, going from bad to worse and no seats in the Commons. It looks bleak.
But I’m not giving up, the stakes are too high and there has to be another way to fight for our country’s long term future by controlling islam and neutralising its ambitions. Why are people so afraid of being branded ‘extremists’ when this is just another propaganda label applied by the establishment and the enemedia? If it’s ‘extreme’ to love your country and want it to remain a beacon of democracy, freedom and civilised values, I suppose Churchill and all the brave men and women who helped to beat the nazis were extremists. If so, I’m happy to make them my role models.
PS: the Archbishop of Canterbury in Ukip?! No thanks, if that happened I’d know for sure that we’d gone in the wrong direction.
Quercus: “But that’s all the more reason to lead on other things (the economy), so we have more chance of getting heard.”
The fearmongering regarding the economy during the referendum campaign did not win them the argument. Yes of course the economy is important. However other issues were more important, and won the referendum.
OK Quercus, what economic policies would you propose, which would draw significant numbers of votes away from both Labour and the Conservatives?
Hugo
A referendum is entirely different from a general election.
Sorry to be unhelpful but I’ve spent months on here saying what we’ve got to do on the economy – see my articles in January – but in a phrase we’ve got to become nationalists not libertarians.
I believe this was the Marine Le Pen approach. Nationalism , bit of protectionism, shifted the debate away from immigration related issues towards jobs & the economy & the Euro/Franc issue. But she came up against someone more plausible in those areas. I don’t speak French – that’s what it said in the media.
Hugo
Try this:
http://www.ukipdaily.com/economic-policy-win-elections/
If you click on my name in the title, the other articles will come up.
Gary, if people want to vote for a party that will firmly control mass immigration and control Sharia, a party that believes hard work should be rewarded by a fair days pay, that greedy rich people should not get away with avoiding fair taxes and lazy people should not get money for doing nothing, that criminals should fear the consequences of their crimes so much that they don’t bother in the first place – please tell me who have they got to vote for, I can’t think of one party or leader that has the guts to stand up for these policies and that I know will mean it. This country is crying out for such a party. Why can’t UKIP stand up and be counted
Completely agree. And Newkip could add your kids can still look forward to driving cars, the climate change myths will get busted and British laws will be applied without fear or favour. I wonder how many more have to be maimed or murdered before the bubble bursts.
No Prime Minister with a decent majority calls an election without a bloody good reason, and May’s “I need a strong hand for Brexit” doesn’t qualify. Having delayed Brexit by a year, Remainer May then called this unnecessary election to, as she believed, give her a thumping majority and therefore a free hand to ignore the few genuine Tory Eurosceptics and deliver a a bad, Remain in all but name, Brexit deal. As it turned out, her failure to win a majority also threatens real Brexit, just not in the way she intended.
Michael Shrimpton, writing on veterans today last weekend, indicates Junker told May to call the election…
Perhaps the deliberate policies to alienate traditional Conservatives were also part of the plan?
Perhaps she was not meant to win…it would certainly explain her wooden performances etc
Perhaps her tears were because she did win…
Off topic…We have just received forms to update the Electoral register.
It says 16-17 year olds in the household should also be included.
Is this usual or are we being lined up to allow them to vote?
(Have not noticed this previously…perhaps I’m over reacting).
On the back page, it states they will not be able to vote until they are 18…
But as we know, Mrs May and co do change their minds when it suits them…
Liz – from a few years ago anyway, it is not usual. Only 18 year olds were on previous registers, here in Wales. Thank you for your article, I think that May had to have wanted to throw the General Election because it was purely their policies that allowed Labour to gain traction. But either way we would have been hung out to dry – a strong mandate she could have watered down Brexit – only it might have split the Tories again. I think this dawned on her advisors so they came up with dreadful policies – now, she can blame everyone else. May was and is a Globalist remainer, she always has been Imo. I don’t understand why Nigel got taken in, I wasn’t!
Liz, the request to name 16/17 year-olds in the household has been there for as long as I can remember, and that’s a long time. The information alerts the Council Electoral Officers to how many more will be eligible to vote by a certain date, how many voting cards and ballot papers to order etc.
The Conservatives are least likely to lower the voting age because it would go against their interests. Labour are the most likely to campaign for kids below 18 to have the vote because they want to capture even more naive, impressionable minds – look at what happened recently when Corbyn made his daft promises to students. It was Labour in 1965 who lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 – a transparent grab for youth votes. The SNP allowed 16/17 year-olds to vote in the Independence referendum because they knew the kids would love the idea of breaking free: exactly what all teenagers are dreaming of at that age. They still lost, but it would have been by a bigger margin if only the adult voters had been eligible.
All these Leftard politicians cynically exploit young people by pretending that 16/17 year-olds should have the vote ‘because it’s their future’. Their true motive, which they carefully conceal, is to gain a victory based on the votes of children, most of whom don’t know which way is left, right, sideways or up when it comes to politics.
Yes, it’s their future and that’s exactly why more experienced, wiser heads should be selecting the least worst leaders, which is all we can hope for.
While the loss of Scots Nationalist Socialist MPs gave us a delicious moment of schadenfreude on a bleak election night, the net result was to transfer Remainiac MPs from the opposition benches onto the government benches. The Scottish Tories that replaced the SNP are every bit as Remainiac as the SNP, yet while the SNP were annoying but powerless, the Scottish Tories have significant influence in government.
DESERVEDLY THE BIGGEST LOSER IN THE GE2017 WAS UKIP
Appallingly led by nuttal; oakden etc UKIP made few pacts to not stand against good tory/labour brexiteers. In some cases a candidate was stood against a good tory brexiteer and in many cases no candidate was stood against a whole raft of remainiacs in a winnable brexitfriendly seat eg Newcastle under Lyme.
337 lost deposits plus just 41 seats where the ukip vote exceeded the 5% threshold and only a dozen or so where we put up a good fight. This follows on from the complete wipeout of all ukip county councillors (except one – Burnley)
Organisation of the GE was at best shambolic, I can’t write here the worst.
The SNP remain a strong force in Scotland and remain by all criteria the largest party there but let us hope they are beginning to wane away. In any event they have reinvigorated Scottish life for all their faults and smashed the highly corrupt scotslabourparty.
The greens and the libdems are stagnant and are going nowhere. PlaidCymru are at their apogee – just 3 seats and that is it.
The corbynistas probably cheated – postal voting frauds anyone? Plus students voting twice plus a couple of very lucky recounts with victory by the fingertips.They lost strongholds such as Mansfield to the tories, safe labour seats turning due to workingclass disgust with open door immigration.
The PM May will stagger on because the tories fear another GE anytime soon.This was the worst campaign by the conservative party in 50 years and they are still in government. Next time they will do better if they defend and deliver brexit. Labour are strong again but are full of middleclass loonys from the public sector.
The internet is beginning to influence electoral success here and across the world. Populism will grow in strength despite all attempts to stop it. Donald Trump is fighting a daily intensive war that would make most men give up. Groups across Europe are beginning the great revolution of ideas against metropolitan elites. Let us hope that we join them in the crusade.
Not a great deal to disagree with here.
HOWEVER, I think it is very much a ‘benefit of hindsight’ comment to blame Teresa May for an unnecessary election which has turned out to weaken her, rather than strengthen her and the Brexit cause, which was why she called it.
We have to be honest : EVERYONE and his dog was calling it for T. May, right up until the 10 o’ clock announcement of the exit polls. There were NO voices in the Cons Party urging her to not call an early election ~quite the contrary.
My own take on the main reason Labour did so well is that they bamboozled the young in particular with mirages of beautiful money trees; plus promises of housing……….
What Cons did not do and still cannot, in fact do ( but UKIP could ) is point out that if two plus two still equals four then no amount of housebuilding that is conceivably possible, given how overcrowded our country already is, can possibly remedy the acute housing shortage unless and until there is a Complete Moratorium on all New Immigration from whatever source ~EU / Africa / Australasia ~ there just ISN’T the room !
NO~ONE is explaining this to the young ~in consequence they are vulnerable to the Corbynite message. The fact that they bought it is evident in the University constituencies where Labour did well.
This is the main message which in my view UKIP now needs to stand for ~ explaining that whilst continued MUI – mass uncontrolled immigration – is destroying our country and the prospects of the young, it is not even benefiting Africa and other poor / developing countries ~it is lose lose lose all the way around.
This is a coherent, intellectually defensible, message and I hope UKIP’s new Leader will be a strong and unapologetic advocate for it.
Whether we like it or not Theresa May is the prime minister and she needs the backing of all of her MPs. Which Conservative MP will replace her? David Davies should be discounted until he has finished with the UK-EU negotiations.
The problem was caused by David Cameron’s failure to foresee a Leave win and he did not plan for it. Mrs May took over the duties as Prime Minister and she formed a team to negotiate the UK leaving the EU. Regarding the last general election she miscalculated by assuming that Labour would not win many seats. Regarding UKIP, who really expected a positive result, UKIP was regarded as a one issue party that is not needed.
The constant sniping about Mrs May and the negativity about what will be achieved with the UK-EU negotiations is aiding the EU. The UK has stated its position and the EU has stated its position. If there are hold ups it will be due to the EU’s dogma about its four basic principles, its financial settlement demand, its EU citizen protection demand and its present refusal to talk trade. We must not forget Article 50 is about the future relationship between the UK and the EU, the clock is ticking.
As Mr Barnier has stated, the clock is ticking and there will be no agreement until every thing is agreed. I can for see a Hard Leave due to the EU’s arrogance and lack of flexibility. The UK has stated its its views regarding the post Leave relationship, the EU is showing its views. The EU is failing to understand the the UK will be a fully independent country after the end of March 2019, the clock is ticking.
Regarding UKIP it needs to listen to its members and to develop policies that will attract the UK voters. I have may thoughts which I will not divulge outside of UKIP.
I think I just heard ‘a voice in the wilderness’. Maybe it was just the sound of chains rattling.
UKIP elections remind me of the recent uS election. I’m bent as a nine dollar note, and as you know what you are getting, so vote for me – and surprisingly (bbc reaction) rejected by the general public.
To me, there is too much baggage at the top of UKIP to make things work again. Much of it reminds me of the children’s game ‘I am king of the castle’:
– I was an (embezzling) mp you know;
– I am a comedian and seen on the TV;
– I am a bland unknown, risen without trace (a la Macron);
– and so on
Get rid of the back stabbing clag. While poisoning the Party from within, because they want to be king of the castle, they are stalling any rejuvenation of the Brexit Voice. It may already be too late.
If it is not obvious, currently I have given up on UKIP.
My current target may be too obvious to see. Get rid of the poll tax funded bbc and its left wing propaganda machine. I’m sick of it.
Against all the coverage of this, that, or the other predictions bbc bombarded the public with,
– the economy is doing good, despite Brexit;
– cars are to be manufactured in Britain, despite Brexit;
– immigration is up (hurrah) despite Brexit
– a black, Jewish, Chinese, lesbian woman, with one arm and who is an economic migrant, is being promoted by the bbc who are funding her legal case to stay here for treatment, despite Brexit. With a disease that costs (taxpayers) 10,000 pounds a week . . .
and on, and on, (all together now) despite Brexit.
The start of the SNPs demise is because of Brexit. The Brexit effect will be to strengthen our Union. I have been writing about this for a long time – one only needs to look at history. Despite what leftie “progressives” might tell you; there is nothing new under the sun.
Yes Elizabeth, but doing all we can for Brexit would be so much more effective if we had attractive policies on everything else which might actually get us some power and influence.
And you touch on it:
“He needs to be out there delivering UKIP’S honest straightforward message as Trump did in USA declaring that US jobs had been sacrificed on the altar of globalism”.
We haven’t thought this through. We still go on about free trade as though it’s the holy grail. If we really want to resist globalism we need to turn to nationalist economics and a strong dose of protectionism designed to start meeting our own domestic demand again.
Farage’s economics are globalist. Economics win elections.
Keep Nigel for Brussels-bashing, look to Anne Marie to appeal to the people.
How many UK jobs are being sacrificed on the alter that Gordon Brown started with IR35? Minimum wage? Living wage? Enough employment regs to drive an employer mad? Certainly this one.
Automated tills in supermarkets. Now bank staff becoming a threatened species. Even cash if visa gets its way. The problem is hidden in plain sight. Thatcher came to power nearly 40 years ago. I doubt if many of her political generation would have anticipated the scale of problems now, willingly created by her replacements over what, a couple of decades.
We are running on about half the staff we had 10 years ago. Cannot get commonwealth ones any more. Frozen out by home office rules that favour EU sourced. Almost no home grown. And now bloody Sharia coming to a town near you any time soon.
This kipper will happily be voting for AMW. Else following if she’s driven out.
good analysis as far as it goes but UKIP must formulate policies outside the narrow Brexit debate. NHS, Social care, the deficit, housing etc. Until the public hear our views on this we will go nowhere