Gianfranco Baldini - 09/05/2013

The success of the UK Independence Party at the local British elections on 2nd May went beyond all expectations. Farage’s party actually got 23% of the votes, just behind the Labour Party (29%) and breathing down the necks of the Conservatives (25%). The Liberal-Democrats came in well behind with 14%. In greater detail, Cameron’s party have lost over one third of the seats obtained in the previous vote in 2009, Labour has earned eight per cent and almost doubled its seats, winning three counties, while the Lib-Dems have lost almost one-quarter of their seats. Farage’s boom is impressive: from eight to 147 seats.

We know that local elections often produce particular results, which cannot be transposed to the following general elections. In the case of last week’s vote this is even truer because the voting took place almost exclusively in England and above all at the territorial level of the counties, so for elections the citizens are not much interested in. The vote, however, provides a number of interesting aspects.

1. The British political scene by now seems to be characterised by four parties (apart from the Nationalists in the devolution territories). It is true, as some argue, that it will be above all next year’s European vote that will tell to what extent the UK Independence Party is destined to stay on the scene as a protagonist. But it can also be said that this role has by now been won for several months, with a growing potential of influence on the leaders’ strategies, above all those of Cameron.

2. It is not just an anti-European vote. Almost all the opinion surveys say that Europe has little impact as a decision factor in the vote. The day of the vote, Cameron had tried to stop the wave of anti-European votes by stating that he would have brought forward the promised referendum on Europe. But this factor, however important it may be, is not decisive in the vote to UKIP, which attracts consensus above all on the issue of immigration and the defence of British identity, looking to a country that has no longer existed for over half a century. The point is that UKIP is managing to become the interpreter of a broader attack on the political establishment, with buzz words that have left their mark in many European countries, not least with the idea of speaking in the language and talking about the needs of the man in the street.

3. The challenge above all concerns the Conservatives, but not them alone. Farage explicitly aims at a similar challenge to the one fielded thirty years ago with the birth of the Social Democratic Party. Then the shift to the centre of some important Labour MPs contributed to two essential innovations in the party system. The first one concerned the marginalisation of the Marxist component inside Labour, which slowly prepared for the Tony Blair’s modernising drive. The second was the birth of the Lib-Dem, from the merger of the SDP and the Liberals, in 1988. Today the Party seems to be fishing among the electorate in a transversal manner, also drawing on the reserve of workers’ votes that Labour has kept over the years. The challenge is very different because UKIP is to the right of the Tories, but it is also true that its success has siphoned off the consensus from the more extremist British National Party.

4. The electoral rules are important to understand the meaning of this challenge. At first sight, the Lid-Dems themselves might seem to be the major victims of Farange’s actions. Relegated to fourth force, are they destined to make way for the new challengers? It’s too early to say, but we cannot forget that the Lib-Dem seats in Westminster come from constituencies in which the runner-up candidate, in the 2010 elections, was often a Conservative. The Tories are still the most vulnerable to a challenge from Farage, and it may be that at the next elections this ends up guaranteeing the Lib-Dems a number of seats similar to the current one, albeit before a clear-cut drop in votes.

5. The party is also successful because it is tied to a charismatic and recognised leadership. Unlike what happens in many Left-wing anti-establishment movements or ones that simply refuse to place themselves on the Right-Left axis (like the Pirates), UKIP wins also thanks to its leader’s popularity. He has a past among the Conservatives, and today seems to have become very popular. Indeed, Ed Miliband’s labour does not seem equipped to capture the benefits from being in the Opposition. The party, rather like the Italian Democrats, is divided and some recent interviews with Tony Blair show that Miliband is struggling to find a strong a creditable profile.

6. So is an Italian-style scenario taking shape for Great Britain, with an anti-establishment party like that of Beppe Grillo capable of dictating the agenda on many issues? There are some important differences. And some specifically Italian ingredients are missing, starting from the high level of corruption among the political class. In some ways, then, Farage is a “Right-wing Grillo,” and the Conservatives will do well to take this challenge seriously, not like a few days before the vote one of its most senior ministers, Kenneth Clarke did, when he again pulled out the word “clown.” By now it should be clear that dubbing politicians one dislikes ‘clowns’ is tantamount to an own-goal.

Gianfranco Baldini
(University of Bologna)