Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Ukip is in the middle of the most cynical political repositioning ever

You can’t be both more Tory than the Tories and more Labour than Labour. But apparently you can tell people you are and it’ll work

UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel farage poses for photographs at party headquarters after Douglas Carswell won the Clacton-on-Sea by-election for UKIP on October 10, 2014 in England. Mr Carswell will become the first UKIP Member of Parliament. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images). (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) 
issue 18 October 2014

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[/audioplayer]I think I’ve cracked it. If you want to springboard your minor political party into the mainstream and take British politics by storm, then all you need to do is go on and on about helping the poor.

You don’t need to do much else. You certainly don’t need to modify your policies so that they actually help the poor. This would be overkill. Nor, frankly, do you even need to be 100 per cent up to speed on who the poor are. Feel free to conflate them with the elderly or the skilled working class or people who aren’t from London, or pretty much anybody, really. Steer clear only of easily identifiable actual minorities which your potential voters will know for certain they aren’t in.

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