70
Politics?
c m
. e
r d
. i
a a
.
. s
c p
. a
29
k n
k
The UK’s Tea Party
Illustration: Lee Nutland www.leenutland.com
This month you can cast a ballot for the UK’s Tea Party. Troubled by immigrants? Think the government spends too much of our money? Worried that we’re becoming the United States of Europe? Fear not; Nigel Farage has a posse. His party, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), has been getting a lot of press lately. If we held a general election tomorrow and opinion poll results turned into seats, UKIP would have more MPs than the Lib Dems. Neither of those two things is going to happen, but UKIP does stand to be the biggest story of this month’s local elections. Comparisons between UKIP and the Tea Party, a constitution thumping anti-government faction of the US Republicans, were made as early as 2010. The two have a lot in common, not least because UKIP is attracting disenfranchised conservatives; both are anti-establishment, nationalistic, seek a small government, provide a protest vote and have a play at the national stage. Farage’s appearance on Fox News late last year provided an interesting juxtaposition. Fox mainstay Neil Cavuto was visibly titillated by Farage’s less
government mantra: “The great battle that’s going on right now, and it’s happening in America, it’s happening in Europe, is of bureaucracy vs. democracy.” Cavuto followed it by labelling Portugal’s ex-president José Manuel Barroso as French “because of his attitude” before Farage fingered him as a known Maoist and Cavuto went for the “I had my suspicions” reach around.
no-hope fringe party, but in truth they’re far closer to the nation’s political mood than the Tories, Lib Dems or Labour. Farage is doing a good job of being able to drink ale – British, you understand – discuss serious economic issues and engage with the electorate. He’s on a “Common Sense” tour engaging the common man, wearing a hat borrowed from a 50s dick and pouting like a startled frog.
It was a joy to watch, but the key difference between the two parties – and I know that Fox has gone quiet on the tea-hating savages – is that UKIP’s doing it with a bit of class. It’s hard to stomach, but it’s the British way. When the Tea Party was at its peak the candidates were more like caricatures than Spitting Image’s broad-shouldered Thatcher when she neighboured an insect-gassing OAP Hitler and talked of invading the unions.
And this is the key difference between the would-be right wing detractors in the US and what’s happening in the UK right now; the media and the electorate are taking UKIP relatively seriously. The Tea Party were never much more than the bile that collects on the edge of Fox News’s ever-snarling gnashers.
Christine O’Donnell, for one, put thousands of dollars into an advert telling voters she wasn’t a witch and, as the darling of a movement that advocates strict adherence to the US Constitution, couldn’t even get a grasp on the first amendment. UKIP has been construed as a bunch of loonies and a
The challenge for Farage is now three-fold: galvanising its support base to win seats in parliament, keeping it together during a general-election-scale media onslaught and creating an election platform that deals with more than Johnny Forensczca. The first past the post system means it’s unlikely UKIP will gain any seats in parliament, their support base is too stretched out and they don’t have the campaign machinery. Whatever you say about their manifesto,
their candidates and supporters don’t get much further than the EU. And the most important issue, outside of the endless glossy profiles that have been run over the last six months, is that we haven’t really turned the heat on yet. Everything considered, they might not turn out like the dud red, white and blue firework that was the Tea Party, but they won’t achieve that much more.
----------
Christopher Goodfellow
twitter.com/MediaSpank
mediaspank.net
Send rants to media@crackmagazine.net