Mainstream politicians still aren’t sure how to talk about Ukip. There’s the question of whether the party’s European election and by-election successes will power them to a good result at the 2015 election, or whether this protest movement will fade a little by the time voters start thinking about the sort of government they like. There’s the question of whether Ukip is borrowing members of each mainstream party’s ‘core vote’, or whether neither the Tories nor Labour should consider voters ‘theirs’ any more anyway. And then there’s the question of how to talk about Ukip.
Most senior politicians are agreed that you can’t call people who vote for Ukip fruitcakes or closet racists. But the question still lingers of how to approach the Ukip leadership. Ed Miliband decided to take a stronger line of attack last week in his ‘make-or-break’ speech, saying ‘they’ve got away with it for too long’.
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