“It’s the economy, stupid” is attributed to James Carville who coined the phrase as campaign strategist of Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign against the sitting President George H. W. Bush.
However, read much of UKIP’s literature and webpage output and you would think that the European Union is the voter’s main concern. Go to any UKIP meeting, and soon enough someone will start talking about the EU, bemoaning the problems it causes. However, go down the same line with the voters and often their eyes will glaze over and they will rapidly lose interest.
Why?
Because, to them, the main problem is the economy, more specifically their personal economy. You’ve heard the story about “Basildon Man” (as whichever way the old Basildon constituency went, the nation would go) who, in the years 1979 to 1992, in going into the polling booth, put his hand on his heart and wanted to vote Labour, but then moved it over to his wallet and decided to vote Conservative.
On top of this, the November IPSOS/Mori opinion poll of “Issues Facing Britain” clearly shows the Economy (40%) and Immigration (35%) as the top two concerns, with Unemployment (33%) a close third.
A picture says a thousand words, and my simple diagram tries to portray the message we must verbalise.
We know the EU is a major root cause of economic problems, but the voter doesn’t. OK, there’s the £53 million a day in cash we pay to Brussels, and the Tim Congdon estimate of the total cost to Britain of 11% of GDP that all the fraud, waste, corruption, misuse, misallocation and regulation causes. But what the voter sees is their net disposable income going down after paying taxes and essential expenses. Asda can see this clearly, recording that disposable income was at its lowest since 2008, and people became 4.2% poorer during Financial Year 2011/12.
Then there is immigration. Even the BBC have to admit there has been a rise. 176,000 immigrants arrived in the year September 2012 to August 2013 compared to 153,000 the previous year. And we know the likelihood of what will happen after 1 January 2014, when we fear hordes of Romanians and Bulgarians will arrive. And the immigrants affect the economy – they are mostly low-skill low-paid workers who are not net taxpayers: many receive benefits, pay little tax and consume government services such as health that we pay for. The immigrants also displace British workers onto the dole, which is the third major concern, in itself hitting the economy as well.
As we know, David Cameron, whatever sound-bites he utters, cannot stop the flow against the rules of the EU behemoth.
So, the EU causes much of the economic, unemployment and immigration problems this country suffers. All roads lead to the economy, but all the issues depart from the EU, either overloading the economy directly or via immigration and unemployment.
How do we explain in a few words in our leaflets, on the doorstep? Here’s my attempt at it.
- Immigration is excessive, overloading our services, and costing us all more.
- Unemployment is high, Britons lose their jobs to immigrants. Benefit spending rises.
- The economy isn’t improving, we all feel poorer, paying higher taxes and prices.
- We cannot stop immigrants, and the EU costs us 11% of Domestic Product overall.
- Out of the EU we can control immigration, stop EU waste & fix the economy to feel wealthier.
I hope this article provokes discussion on how we best express this message.
Between the first quarter of 2004 and the third quarter of 2011, employment of workers born in the A8 (New Eastern Bloc EU Members) increased by 600,000. Over the same period the number of unemployed young people in the UK almost doubled, from 575,000 to just over a million.
With more people coming over to the UK, the strain is being felt at the school level, and the non-political Migration Watch has concluded, using UK Government data that by 2015, as a direct result of immigration: 550,000 more school places will be needed as a direct and indirect result of migration, costing a further £40 billion, and over the next ten years – to 2020 – this rises to one million extra places at a total cost over ten years of almost £100 billion. The figures become more alarming once we consider that the grandchildren of the immigrants will, in all likelihood, stay in the UK and require educating. Immigration Watch UK’s estimation of the
numbers would require an additional school places required by 2033 will be 1.3 Million taught by 75,000 additional teachers in 3,800 new schools.
Brian, its hard to fault your analysis and the reduction of the issue for leaflets is right.. The trouble is that the counter argument used by Lib/Lab/Con is that immigration is good for the economy. The media seems to support this and too often stats are provided to show how much good immigration does. Big business also benefits from this immigration, so getting them on side will be difficult.This then becomes a question (for the voter) of which side do you believe. If the UKIP argument is right then we need to get apolitical organisations involved in economics and social issues to endorse or at least agree with the UKIP message. A final thought – how much of of our economic growth is attributed to immigration?. The more people you have the bigger the economy! Shame that it’s not real growth.
Thanks John, and Iain above has dug out some numbers from Immigration Watch. I am sure that the IEA will have some numbers on the economy which Mark Littlewood heads, and he spoke at Conference, plus the Tim Congdon numbers too.
John, the economy may be growing but with more people to slice up the cake between, it is not growing per person.
As Iain points out, there is the strain on public services. This mean we need to be taxed more (or they borrow more, or we get poorer services) and the low-paid immigrants are not net taxpayers, plus the Brit each one displaces to the dole.
“It’s the economy, stupid” is a phrase that is meant to be felt personally. Not many people feel better off in their pockets – I certainly don’t. While business may be doing better, while the rich are getting richer, the rest of us are getting poorer.
Guest.You make my point well.I agree.. Growth in the economy is skewed by the effects of immigration. Governments/politicians exclaim their success with GDP growth figures, but as you say the quality of life for the majority has got worse.