10 Aug 2016

UKIP RIP? The potential consequences if Nigel Farage’s party falls apart

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In ordinary circumstances a leadership election for a political party which boasts precisely one Member of Parliament (and a somewhat estranged MP at that) would not be thought of as very consequential. This would be even more true when the six declared contenders for the position have virtually no national name recognition collectively, never mind individually. When the opening of the contest has featured factionalism and fratricide on an epic scale, reminding one of the scenes in The Life of Brian involving The People’s Front of Judea and The Judean People’s Front, it may be tempting to dismiss the entire exercise entirely, especially in the middle of August. Who but the saddest of the political junkies would be interested in following this odd fight until its conclusion on 15 September?

Despite all of this, some attention is merited (and not merely because one struggles with material at this time of year, after all there is always Trump to fall back on). In many respects UKIP has been an extremely successful political party. When it started its crusade to see Britain leave the EU it was a cause that seemed extremely quixotic. The notion even five years ago that a Government would be willing to concede a referendum on the question appeared exceptionally unlikely. Yet UKIP won one vote in eight in the May 2015 election, having previously topped the poll at the European Parliament elections almost exactly a year earlier. It has hundreds of local councillors. It has become the home for those disaffected with the Conservatives in their home territory, Labour in its old heartlands and those who are alienated from the entire political class almost everywhere. It is still polling at about the same level today as it was last summer. On every measure bar the number of MPs (where the UK electoral system is massively biased against it), UKIP is unambiguously the third political party.

Paradoxically, perhaps, the decision to leave the EU taken on 23 June was always destined to be an existential threat to Nigel Farage and his followers. For many of those in his ranks, opposition to the UK’s membership of the EU was the single logical and overwhelming reason for the party to exist. While it is true that UKIP has taken on other issues – notably migration – and taken up some other causes, including increasing the numbers of grammar schools, if a citizen wants to see policy change in these spheres then the more rational use of their time would be to participate in the Conservative Party, especially now that the more down-to-earth Theresa May and her supporters have seized the helm and driven the more metropolitan liberal types such as David Cameron to the backbenches. It may well be that Mr Farage, a shrewd populist, anticipated that the ‘what are you now for?’ issue was about to confront his political force and wisely decided to leave centre stage before it did so.

The opening stages of the battle to succeed Mr Farage have bordered on the farcical. The sole MP, Douglas Carswell, who is by intellectual conviction essentially a libertarian figure, made it clear from the outset that he had no interest in seeking to lead a party whose membership was more inclined to the authoritarianism of Mr Farage and his closest allies. The party Deputy Leader, Suzanna Evans, who has a similar outlook to Mr Carswell, would have liked to stand but as she has been suspended as a member since March (for the crime of criticising Mr Farage publicly) is not allowed to throw her hat in the ring.

The man widely seen as the initial front-runner, Steven Woolfe MEP, a barrister and a fan of Mr Farage, found his credentials initially questioned because he had been slow in renewing his membership thus flirting with breaking the rule that candidates had to have been party members for at least two years continuously, then encountered further trouble when it emerged that he had once stood to be the Police and Crime Commissioner of Greater Manchester despite failing to declare that he had a past drink-driving conviction (he “forgot” about it, apparently; it must have been one hell of a drinking session) and then finally allegedly submitted his nomination papers to be UKIP leader late and incorrectly. He has been knocked off the ballot and three of his backers have resigned from the ruling National Executive Council in protest at his treatment. More by a process of elimination than anything else, the presumed leader-in-waiting is Diane James MEP but it is possible that her victory will result in there being two versions of UKIP, one led by her and the other fronted by Mr Woolfe.

In that case, an outright implosion of UKIP during the remainder of this Parliament has to be viewed as a serious possibility. What would be the consequences of this for other key actors in UK politics?

More breathing space on Brexit for the Prime Minister and the Conservatives

“Brexit”, Mrs May has intoned, “means Brexit”. Yet what precise version of Brexit that might be is less certain. The final model that emerges will be as much due to an assessment of the state of the centre-right in British politics as it is on the technical merits of the single market or free movement of people. The size and strength of the lobby that might shout ‘betrayal’ at a settlement which Mrs May secures is a major factor in the decisions that she will need to make both in the short-term and over a two-year or three-year period of what are bound to be complicated talks with the EU-27.

Mrs May would rather have more and not less breathing space and a much weaker UKIP would be appreciated. The gravitational force which it might exert on the ‘Hard Brexit’ contingent within Conservative MPs would be much less of a factor for consideration. Furthermore, if UKIP were to break up, some of its ‘softer’ members such as Ms Evans and Mr Carswell might be willing to move over to the Conservative Party under its new leadership. The division of the centre-right could end.

A weaker UKIP would also make life for the Labour Party leader easier

One of the many fears of Labour MPs is that any re-election of Jeremy Corbyn might expose their party to sizeable levels of defections of voters in traditional Labour constituencies. This would certainly have been the strategic objective of Mr Woolfe if he had succeeded Mr Farage. Labour suffered more from UKIP than it had thought it might at the general election and Mr Corbyn is much less willing than Ed Milband was to shift his rhetoric to the right on immigration. If UKIP falls apart, he would not even have to consider such repositioning. As many Labour MPs regard the current challenge to their leader as essentially a dress rehearsal for a make-or-break attempt to get him out next year, a less potent and relevant UKIP may serve to frustrate their attempts to oust him further

An enfeebled UKIP is a virtual precondition for the revival of the Liberal Democrats

Although they have polar opposite positions on Europe and almost everything else, UKIP and the Liberal Democrats are often rivals for people who have no enthusiasm for the two major parties. The fact that the Liberal Democrats were in coalition with the Conservatives from 2010 to 2015 is an underestimated element in the rise of UKIP during that Parliament. The ‘protest vote’, or at a more elevated level the ‘anti-system’ electorate which often embraced the Liberal Democrats, could not do so once Nick Clegg had made it a party of power and part of ‘the system’. It had to travel to a different destination and Mr Farage made UKIP that alternative option.

In parts of the country, most notably the South West of England and Wales, there was almost a straight swap between UKIP and the Liberal Democrats. The slow process of rebuilding the Liberal Democrats being undertaken by Tim Farron would be assisted enormously if UKIP were to disintegrate of render itself incredible as a result of in-fighting. A similar (if less likely) marginalisation of the Green Party would also be helpful. The ripple effect of Mr Farage’s resignation as UKIP leader could thus yet prove to be considerable.

Tim Hames, Director General, BVCA



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