The Farage Effect

As candidiates, activists, journalists and many others watched the local election results trickle in throughout yesterday, there was an overarching theme of the day that was impossible to ignore: UKIP. Nigel Farage's zombie army of disaffected Tories, BNP members seeking respectability and protesters against the status quo were nothing if not effective in their attempted conquest of English councils up and down the land. With the unwavering support of a somewhat awestruck BBC desperately seeking popularity, Farage was able to become the story of the day with UKIP supposedly sending “clear messages” to all three main parties and David Cameron rapidly changing his opinion on the loonies and racists he had previously derided.

UKIP are though, it would seem, the kings and queens of second place. Although they ended up gaining 139 seats overall, the vast majority of their acheivement involved nestling up so tightly behind Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors that you'd think they had no concept of personal space. Their silver medals made them the talking point of the day to such an extent that coverage by the media, not least by the non-partisan BBC, appeared to many to be a tad unrepresentative. According to the media, no-one wanted to hear about hundreds of somewhat mundane non-UKIP seats; we had all succumbed to The Farage Effect.

The main losers of the day were certainly the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats who ended up losing 335 and 124 seats respectively. With a mid-term election, some losses are obviously to be expected although this is possibly more than either party had bargained for. Notable also was the South Shields by-election in which the Nick Clegg's rapidly evaporating gang of meanderers achieved a less-than-pitiful seventh place with half as many votes as the BNP candidate and the embarrassing forfeiture of their deposit.

As the main opposition, this should have been a good day for Labour. Unfortunately, Ed Milibland had set phasers to “underwhelm” and, although making modest gains, failed to do enough to impede the progress of Farage's steamroller. The vote “for” UKIP was in many places a vote “against” the biggest three parties and the supposed main opposition party appeared to be in no place to provide a safe haven for the disillusioned. One thing was clear, we no longer have a clear-cut two-party system or any derivative of such. The “clear message” was really that a huge number of people are fed up with how our politics works (or doesn't) and something needs to change. And change now.

In amongst all the talk of two-party, three-party and four-party systems, there was one party whose results went largely unreported, who made modest gains and who, most importantly, had an apparent immunity to the UKIP epidemic. The Green Party ended the day a total of five seats up with notable gains in Warrington, Oxford and Hythe, the latter of which boasted the largest turnout of all Kent wards (39.95%).

So why was the Green Party immune? There are probably a number of factors. It's quite probable that the alternative path walked by green politics is less fascinating to the mass media; for that we should perhaps be cautiously grateful. It's also possible that a large percentage of Green Party supporters already feel as though they're with an alternative (or even protest) party, so UKIP would have nothing to offer in that regard. Whatever the reason, we Greens should maybe take a brief moment today to allow ourselves a wry smile. In amongst all the battles for political dominance and the circus of media madness, Greens are continuing to make steady progress towards a better and more stable kind of politics. And it would appear that no amount of unabashed Faragery can touch that.

A Green Message

On Thursday 2^nd May, we get to vote in the local government elections. If you're still undecided on who to vote for or you're unsure about the party you'd normally support, it's worth a look at the Green Party.

Caroline Lucas released the Greens' inspirational video message earlier today, so spare a couple of minutes to watch and have a listen to what she has to say.

Why I Turned Green

Hello. My name's Nigel, I'm from Kent and I'm not a Tory.

Blue

There exists a common stereotype that everyone in the south east of England is a champagne-swilling, yacht-owning, Thatcher-worshipping Friend of Dave with four homes and an impressive portfolio of offshore bank accounts. This is not entirely true. Some of us even dared to disagree with spending £10m on the state-funded deification of a figure so divisive, the only real consensus reached on her legacy was that she was a woman. Despite the Conservatives being a party of low taxation (translation: "I'd prefer to contribute as little to society as possible"), they seemed more than happy to dish out an enormous helping of our money on what was essentially an open-air party political broadcast with a coffin and a special guest appearance by Her Majesty. Furthermore, the silence of the TaxPayers' Alliance on the matter was deafening. Despite previously having kicked off against doctors' wages, recycling and gender reassignment surgery, it would appear they were content with a lavish send-off for a controversial Conservative icon. The cynical among us might begin to wonder if they're not as independent as they claim to be.

No indeed, I learnt very early on that I'm not a Conservative. Tory ideals are very much grounded in the survival of the fittest and the interests of the individual over the community. These notions are massively contrary to the way I was brought up and the views of the people I most respect. Humans are social animals: most of us want to help others and are naturally generous and kind. But the Conservative message survives through peddling fear and suspicion which makes us doubt our natural altruism. Nowhere is this more blatant than on the pages of the Daily Mail which bullies us into seeing each other as scroungers, yobs and evil job-stealing immigrants. We're not. Most of us are nice people.

Red

So what about Labour? Labour certainly have a noble legacy: Clement Attlee, Labour Prime Minister during the post-war years, is fondly remembered for contributions such as the NHS, welfare and nationalisation of public utilities. Through unions, the core Labour message stands up for ordinary workers, fighting to ensure fair wages and conditions for all. This message of unity is a sound one and reflects the feelings of many of us. But countries such as Russia and China show us that if we're not careful, this ideal is often both economically unsustainable and can come at a price: liberty. This sacrifice of our civil liberties was certainly true of the "nanny state" created by the Blair government and is absolutely too authoritarian for my taste.

A mention of Tony Blair inevitably brings up the unfathomable contradiction that is today's Labour Party. Recent events have brought back into the spotlight how, despite still being funded by the unions, Blair's "New Labour" essentially stood for the same neoliberalism as Thatcher's Conservatives. Tony Blair was, for all intents and purposes, Maggie's spawn with a red tie and some convincing PR; his battles against union action are testament to this. Arguably though, Blair is most remembered for skipping to war hand-in-hand with George Bush, a man for whom even pretzels seem to mount an insurmountable challenge. Tony's Iraqi decision is one which continues to haunt him to this day but he steadfastly stands behind his actions, albeit with an ever-more tired voice. Blair has recently resurfaced to face off against new head boy Ed Miliband in a battle illustrated by newspapers as a Mortal Kombat style fight to the death between "New Labour" and "Possibly Not New Labour Any More". The Labour party need a long sit down, a nice cup of tea and a good think about what they actually stand for.

Yellow

So, I need a party which isn't drowning in self-interest and which doesn't attempt to record and control the most intimate details of everyone's lives. The Liberal Democrats seem like an obvious choice. I like their manifesto. I'm just not sure that Nick Clegg has actually read it.

I stood behind and voted for the Lib Dems for most of my voting life, up until, and including, the 2010 general election. They weren't funded by millionaires or heavyweight unions and seemed to consist largely of reasonable people who care a great deal about fairness and freedom. I still believe this is true, at least of the majority of the membership. But the party leadership seem to be wandering off in quite a peculiar direction, much to the confusion and distress of many of the party faithful. The excellent Political Compass accurately describes the Lib Dems as "somewhat mercurial". Since entering coalition, they seem to have lost their orbit entirely. Nick Clegg can now be heard on his weekly call-in show on LBC, desperately trying to regain the glory days of the 2010 TV debates. Unfortunately for him, it's much harder to find people in 2013 who "agree with Nick".

Green

Of course, no party is prefect and none will reflect exactly the views of an individual. But I knew that my views hadn't changed and the frustrating, repeated refusal to stick not just to their manifesto but to their core beliefs caused me to step away from the Lib Dems and re-evaluate my political alignment. I turned back to the Political Compass and took their test. It had been a few years since I'd last had a look and, at worst it would be an interesting bit of fun, at best it might give me some new ideas. It told me, as it had once before, that I was somewhere west of Ghandi and that the Green Party was the one most in line with my views. I'd previously written off the Greens as little more than a single-issue party and one that was too small to make a difference. But after spending some time reading their policies and listening to what they have to say, I honestly don't believe that's true any more.

Today's Green Party policies are still founded heavily in environmentalism and green energy. On top of this though, they favour small businesses over large businesses, champion a citizens' income, support civil liberties and look to renationalise public services. This last point chimes perfectly with my desire to renationalise the railways, something which anyone who knows me will recognise as one of my favourite ranting points. The Green philosophy also fits in well with the world of open source software with which I am involved. For those unfamiliar with the concept, open source software is written by enthusiast programmers all around the world who create and distribute, for free, much of the software we all use and take for granted on a daily basis. I personally see this spirit of community and co-operation as very "green".

There's one more thing which makes me back the green team over the yellow team: the will to fight. Not in the militaristic sense of course (perish the thought) but more of a stubborn force for the common good. It may be something of a green stereotype but it's hard to imagine Nick Clegg chaining himself to a nuclear reactor or living in a tree. The Greens are brilliant, passionate people who can reinvigorate your faith in humanity.

In a recent exploration of the relative popularity of the political parties on Twitter, I've seen that the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party are pretty much neck and neck. Of course, this is not the most scientific of measures but might we soon see the emergence of a new "third" party? Only time will tell.

A Political Footnote

No political overview would of course be complete without a mention of UKIP. This is a fascinating party which appears to be a magnet for disillusioned ex-Tories, people who write letters to the Daily Mail and other, generally intolerant huffers and puffers. Undoubtedly, much of their success is down to unignorable xenophobe, Nigel Farage, a man who appears to favour photographs in which he has his mouth inconceivably wide open. But like the hippopotamus, maybe it's just a reaction to feeling threatened.