Ukip

Monday

Isabel Hardman

The real sign of a professional Ukip

Nigel Farage hasn’t just been enjoying today, he’s been using it as a springboard for a professional, grown-up Ukip. He told a press conference in London that his party would challenge Ed Miliband’s focus on the cost-of-living crisis and do so in the Labour leader’s own town. He also said the party had been doing ‘substantial work on the NHS’. Even though he’s had a torrid few weeks of scrutiny on every reach of his party and his own views, you can’t fault Nigel Farage for continuing to plug away at trying to make his party grow up. But while more prominent policies than just Europe are an important part

Steerpike Steerpike

Ukip fail to organise a piss-up in a brewery

Even before Ukip’s troops stormed last night’s EU elections, they were already planning their victory party. Where a few months ago it would have been held in a pub, with Nigel Farage posing for his customary pint n’fag shot, this time they were already planning on a much bigger scale. The City of London Distillery, keeping the boozy theme, was booked out ready for a victory rally today. However, Mr S hears that the venue has now been deemed too small to accommodate all the winning candidates, donors and supporters. At the last minute the party has now been moved to the Intercontinental Hotel in Westminster. Surely Health and Safety concerns

Douglas Murray

Will Labour and the Conservatives finally discuss the concerns Ukip has raised?

Ukip have come top of the polls for the UK in the EU elections. Now which of the two following scenarios might we most likely expect from the other parties? Might the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, along with their amazingly loyal chorus-line in the British media, wake up sincerely believing that a ‘racist’ political party is now the biggest UK party in the EU? Do you think they will escalate a war against that party and the public who voted for them, such as would only be appropriate from anyone who actually believed that this country was now dominated and — in Brussels at least — led by

Sebastian Payne

Podcast special: Ukip triumph in European elections

Ukip has come first and the Lib Dems have been decimated in the European Parliament— what does this all mean? The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman discuss the results of the 2014 European elections in a View from 22 podcast special. As Nigel Farage proclaimed last night, have we witnessed the most significant political event of the last century? Can we now expect a new EU referendum policy from Ed Miliband? And how will the coalition parties respond to the results? You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week, or you can use the player below:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

It was the immigration issue wot won it for Ukip

Ukip have triumphed in the UK European Elections. The BBC project that Ukip’s national share of the vote will be 28 per cent ahead of Labour on 25 per cent and the Tories on 24 per cent with the Greens on 8 per cent beating the Lib Dems who are on the 7 per cent into 4th. This is the first time that anyone other than Labour or the Conservatives has won a nationwide election in more than a century. Nigel Farage and his party has given the British political system a mighty shake this morning. They have demonstrated that, in these elections at least, they can put together a coalition

Sunday

Daniel Hannan

Europe rose up in protest against the EU — here’s your guide to the new rebels

Daniel Hannan wrote in the Spectator earlier this year about the pirate parties of Europe I once shared a car to the airport with a French MEP, a member of the Front National (FN). He spoke that very correct French which, across the Channel, serves in place of accent as a social signifier. He casually mentioned that the Holocaust couldn’t have happened, at least not on the scale claimed: the volume of the ovens, he creepily explained, was insufficient. The European Parliament has always had its fair share of extremists, eccentrics and outright, drooling loons. With the FN then polling at 6 per cent, there seemed no need to treat any of its MEPs seriously,

Friday

Sebastian Payne

Where might Nigel Farage stand ‘south of the river’ in 2015?

Nigel Farage has told BBC News this afternoon he intends to stand in a seat ‘south of the river’ at the general election next year. Despite undertaking a victory lap of Essex today, Farage has proclaimed he won’t be standing there: ‘There are several seats here in Essex that are absolutely winnable for us in a general election next year. I haven’t yet decided what I’m going to do but I will choose a seat; it will be a seat south of the area.’ listen to ‘Farage: I will run in 2015’ on Audioboo

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour’s strange response to Ukip’s success

Labour has a strange response today to Ukip’s success. Ed Miliband has argued that ‘there is deep discontent with the way the country is run and a deep desire to change’, which almost suggests that the results have been resoundingly good for Labour. True, the party has won seats – 152 net gains so far – and reeled in big fishes from the Conservatives such as Hammersmith and Fulham Council. But Ukip is stealing votes from Miliband’s party, Labour is not doing as well as it could be expected to, and the Labour leader’s point seems to be as much about the factors driving voters to Ukip as it is

Mark Pritchard

The Tories and Ukip: deal or no deal?

I can understand why some of my Conservative colleagues are calling for a pact with Ukip. At varying times over the past few years I have been concerned that our party isn’t doing enough to respond to the electorate’s hunger for an EU referendum, and I agreed that Ukip put necessary pressure on all political parties, and especially on the Conservatives in getting them to commit to a European referendum. However, time has moved on and the Conservative Party—and the country—now has that pledge. This is a time to hold our individual and collective nerve – and not to make knee-jerk decisions while we’re focussed on today’s results and not

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Ukip surge as Labour make sluggish progress

Only one party can be happy with the local elections results so far, Ukip. Nigel Farage’s party has so far added 86 councilors to its tally and these results suggest that Sunday, when the European Election votes are counted, should be a good night for the party. Labour’s results have been mixed to disappointing. Their best news of the night was picking up Hammersmith and Fulham off the Tories. Knocking over one of the Tories’ flagship councils will delight Labour. But Hammersmith is a region where the demographics have been running against the Tories, look at how Shaun Bailey failed to win the parliamentary seat last time. Labour has also

Thursday

Charles Moore

David Cameron’s plot to keep us in the EU (it’s working)

I write this before the results of the European elections, making the not very original guess that Ukip will do well. Few have noticed that the rise of Ukip coincides with a fall in the number of people saying they will vote to get Britain out of the EU. The change is quite big. The latest Ipsos Mori poll has 54 per cent wanting to stay in (and 37 per cent wanting to get out), compared with 41 per cent (with 49 per cent outers) in September 2011. If getting out becomes the strident property of a single party dedicated to the purpose, it becomes highly unlikely that the majority

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 22 May 2014

Home Demand for housing posed ‘the biggest risk to financial stability’ according to Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England. House prices rose by 8 per cent in the year to the end of March, according to the Office for National Statistics, and in London the increase was 17 per cent. The annual rate of inflation rose to 1.8 per cent in April from 1.6 per cent in March, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index; it remained at 2.5 per cent as measured by the Retail Prices Index. The underlying annual profits of Marks & Spencer fell by 3.9 per cent to £623 million, putting them behind

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

I’ve had it with the insufferable London elite. Have you?

‘I’ve had it with these people. They are so smug; they think they know everything and they know nothing. They want a good kick in the face.’ So said a close friend of mine, more usually a Labour voter, before she went out to vote for Ukip earlier today. I think it was the Jasmine Lawrence thing which tipped her over the edge. Jasmine is, improbably enough, the boss of the BBC’s News Channel. She had ‘tweeted’ that Ukip was a sexist and racist party – yesterday. Of course, she should be sacked. Right now. The BBC’s News Channel is supposedly impartial – that’s what we pay for, an impartial service.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Polls closed: what to expect

Now the waiting begins. If you’re interested in the results of around 50 councils which expect to declare overnight, here they are: Basildon, Basingstoke & Deane, Bexley, Birmingham, Bolton, Brentwood, Broxbourne, Bristol, Cambridge, Cannock Chase, Carlisle, Castle Point, Colchester, Coventry, Croydon, Daventry, Derby, Eastleigh, Enfield, Fareham, Gloucester, Gosport, Hammersmith & Fulham, Haringey, Harlow, Hartlepool, Hastings, Havant, Hertsmere, Ipswich, Kingston-upon-Hull, Kingston-upon-Thames, Lincoln, Liverpool, Maidstone, Merton, Nuneaton & Bedworth, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Purbeck Redbridge, Richmond-upon-Thames, Rochdale, Rochford, Rotherham, Runnymede, Rushmoor, Sandwell, South Tyneside, Southampton, Southend-on-Sea, Stevenage, Stratford-on-Avon, Sunderland, Sutton, Swindon, Tameside, Tamworth, Tandridge, Thurrock, Walsall, Wandsworth, Welwyn Hatfield, Wigan, Worcester. Here are some particularly interesting results to look out for: Kingston-upon-Thames: The Conservatives hope

Charles Moore Charles Moore

David Cameron’s plot to keep us in the EU (it’s working) | 22 May 2014

I write this before the results of the European elections, making the not very original guess that Ukip will do well. Few have noticed that the rise of Ukip coincides with a fall in the number of people saying they will vote to get Britain out of the EU. The change is quite big. The latest Ipsos Mori poll has 54 per cent wanting to stay in (and 37 per cent wanting to get out), compared with 41 per cent (with 49 per cent outers) in September 2011. If getting out becomes the strident property of a single party dedicated to the purpose, it becomes highly unlikely that the majority

Constance Watson

Listen: what the people of Brixton and Chelsea think of Ukip and Farage

London is, like the rest of the country, heading to the polls today. Coffee House went down to Brixton High Street to find out how people intend to vote, and gauge their views on Nigel Farage and UKIP. We found some some who intend to support Farage, others who were more apathetic. This is what they had to say: listen to ‘The people of Brixton on Ukip and Nigel Farage’ on Audioboo And on the other side of town, the people of Chelsea (although less willing to chat) had polarising views on Ukip and the Farage racism row: listen to ‘The people of Chelsea on Ukip and Nigel Farage’ on

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How has Farage prospered? By keeping his message simple

Whatever the result is when the votes are counted, there’s no doubt who has dominated this campaign: Ukip. From the Farage-Clegg debates to the discussions during the past few days about Romanian neighbours, it has been the other parties that have been responding to Ukip. A party that has no MPs and received a mere 3 per cent at the last general election has managed to set the agenda for a nationwide election. To try and understand how Ukip have done this, I went out on the road with Nigel Farage. One of the things that marks Farage out from the other party leaders is that he relishes debate. When

Douglas Murray

Matthew d’Ancona has unwittingly shown why people want to vote Ukip

Well it’s polling day, and if anybody wants a spur to vote Ukip they have two options: Peter Oborne’s stirring cover piece in the new issue of The Spectator and Matthew d’Ancona’s column in yesterday’s Evening Standard. If the sight of white activists pretending to be Romanians so that they could accuse black UKIP members of ‘racism’ did not push you over the edge, then d’Ancona’s column probably will. His article was headlined: ‘We must expose UKIP as the racist party it is.’ This is some promise: for years, Ukip’s enemies have been trying to suggest that the party is racist. D’Ancona’s evidence? Ukip seemed to be racist because it –

Sebastian Payne

Euro elections 2014: final polls put Ukip in first place

The final two polls are out on today’s European elections; both of which put Ukip in first place. YouGov, whose poll at the weekend had both parties tied, has placed Ukip just one point ahead of Labour with 27 per cent of the vote — well within their margin of error: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/hgc3p/index.html”] Opinium on the other hand put Ukip seven points ahead of Labour in their final poll, up five points on the last Opinium poll: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/W2nre/index.html”] Turnout will be key as to what happens in these elections, and the indications from YouGov’s likelihood to vote ratings are that Ukip supporters remain the most enthusiastic. Earlier in the

Sebastian Payne

Podcast: Ukip’s triumph, predictions for this week’s elections and the return of the cad

Has Ukip been a good thing for British politics? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, political commentators Peter Oborne and Matthew Parris debate the topic of this week’s Spectator cover feature. Has Nigel Farage reinvigorated democracy in this country? Can Ukip still be described as a ‘Tory sickness’, a ‘protest party’ or something entirely different? Can the rise of Farage be attributed to the other parties not discussing issues like immigration? And do Peter and Matthew both intend to vote Conservative today? Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth also discuss what will happen in today’s local and European elections. Will Ukip’s momentum of the last few weeks push them into