Time for the Welsh political parties to ‘wake up’ and for the Welsh
people to ‘wise up’ to UKIP and what it is about.
The two
surprising outcomes to the General Election in Wales was the level of support
the Tories received - increasing its share of the vote, holding on to all its
seats and gaining three seats, two of them from Labour including Gower. Then
the other surprise was the large increase in the support for UKIP and most
notably in the former coalfield constituencies.
Whilst it is true that
Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and even the Conservatives lost votes to
UKIP it was nothing like the damage it did to Labour in its traditional areas of support. UKIP
came second in Merthyr and Rhymney, Blaenau Gwent and Caerphilly and with quite
strong performance in other constituencies.
Research
carried out in a publication ‘election-data’ has identified
five social groups that are claimed to be susceptible to the messages and campaigning tactics of UKIP and they are :-
Family groups
that comprise poorer and older tenants of social housing, vulnerable young parents needing substantial state
support. Such groups live in areas of significant deprivation;
Blue collar workers - middle-aged families living in inter war suburban
semis; comfortably- off industrial workers; and low income families reliant on
low skill industrial jobs. These people are often concentrated in areas
hard-hit by post-industrial upheaval;
Households in older council estate households: middle-aged couples in
right-to-buy homes and older people living on council estates on low budgets;
People (usually old) that live in flats or social housing who are dependent
on welfare ,this group also includes childless tenants in social housing flats
with modest social needs. Such groups live in areas that have suffered from the
consequences of post-industrialisation and then finally,
Young singles and couples in the early stages of their adult life with low
incomes and finding it hard to make ends meet. According to the report these are
concentrated in communities with
low-value, poorly maintained private-rented homes and
first-time buyer houses.
As I have
stated the outcome of the May General Election 2015 was quite spectacular for
the Conservatives in Wales and there is little doubt from the beginning of this
century Wales is becoming increasingly more centre-right in its voting patterns. The
recently coined phrase ‘for Wales see England’ is very near the mark
in political terms. It is worth bearing in mind that half of the twenty two
local authorities in Wales have a population where between 30% and 50% were
born outside Wales. So it is apparent that the Wales that I grew up in no
longer exists.
The breakdown of the old industrial communities and economic
diversification has contributed to this trend. What is more 48% of the Welsh
population live within 25 miles of the border with England and that border is
crossed 130,000 times a day. Those who are trying to fathom out why our politics
in Wales is so different to Scotland need to bear in mind that the equivalent
figures for Scotland are that some 3.7% of the Scottish population live within
25 miles of the English border which is crossed less than 30,000 times a day.
We are some seven months from the General Election and
the indigenous political parties of Wales need to address the potential threat
of UKIP with a far greater degree of urgency and seriousness. The Welsh
electorate for their part need to consider in detail what has UKIP got to offer
Wales and what are the possible benefits of voting for a party who’s routes are
entirely based in England. It has no Welsh tradition, heritage or background
whatsoever. Whatever attempts the party makes to hide the fact it is palpably English to the core.
What has
surprised me is that all the parties have left UKIP well alone since May – well
the time has arrived to change all that. As far as I am concerned it starts
right now. It is highly likely that they will not repeat last May’s exploits in
2016 and already its membership has declined by 10% since the General Election.
UKIP is obviously an English party that was founded in 1991 as a Euro-sceptic and right wing
populist party but has seen opportunities to participate in Welsh politics due
to for ‘ Wales see England’ syndrome. It has no instinctive and natural place in Welsh
politics other than using our Nation as a stepping stone to achieve its two
obsessive objectives which are to get Britain out of Europe and exploit the
anti-immigration card.
Those themes certainly appealed in May to a swathe of
voters in Wales but what is facing those voters next year are coming to decisions on a set of completely different issues. Matters such as future governance of our own country; the performance over the years of successive Labour
Governments in Cardiff and how can service delivery be considerably
improved in areas such as education, health and social care.
With that in
mind I went to the UKIP Wales web-site to see what the party said in relation
to Wales last May. I didn’t expect much and I was not disappointed. There
were to be fair a few references to Wales in their manifesto that had as its front cover
‘Believe in Wales’. On closer examination it was almost entirely a re-run of
their UK manifesto.
The references
that there were to Wales included that they will bring forward proposals on
education, health and social care provision in time for the Assembly elections.
So I delved further to find whether they now have such proposals but no they are currently inviting suggestions and ideas from
the general public. Indeed their leader Farage at their recent Doncaster conference said that the
elections in Wales and Scotland and even for the London Mayor are only to be
seen in the context of maintaining the momentum for a ‘No’ vote in the Euro
referendum. He clearly stated that nothing else matters to him.
So not only do
the political parties in Wales need to ‘wake up’ about UKIP but the Welsh
people certainly need to ‘wise up’ about their intentions.
Not only is
UKIP Wales scraping around for policy suggestions to include in their
Manifesto for the Assembly elections they are also in the business of pinching
other parties policies such as the Lib Dems proposal of some two years ago to
abolish the Severn Bridge Tolls. I have no doubt that they will pinch another
one passed at the Bournemouth Conference and that is on reducing VAT on hotels and tourist attraction small businesses in Wales.
I fully
understand that people in the old industrial communities across Wales feel let
down by Welsh Labour because successive Labour administrations in the Assembly
have been far too much Cardiff and coastal-belt focused. However that is no
reason for the Welsh people to turn to an English right wing populist party.
It is down to
the Liberal Democrats whose antecedents in Wales go back to the last quarter of
the 1800’s. Labour whose Welsh heritage stretches back to 1900 and Plaid Cymru
formed in 1925 to listen and respond to the concerns of the people in a far
more real and practical way than ever before.
While is true that the Tory party stretches back to 1921 in its
Welsh antecedents but I fear it is not going to over-expose UKIP at a Welsh
level since in many ways they are
’fellow travellers’. The Tories will always benefit from any damage UKIP can do to
the other three parties of Wales.
During the
Assembly election campaign we must take UKIP head-on in relation to ‘In or Out’
of the European Union. The distortions they propound are staggering. I agree
that the EU needs reforming and democratising but to leave would be so damaging
to the Welsh economy and people’s lives.
The Welsh
people need to fully realise the enormity of the decision and its implications
for our small country. Everyone also must have in mind the enormous level of
inward investment that has come to Wales for decades as well as the vast number
of people employed by large foreign –based companies. In the last six years
alone Wales has received almost £2bn from Europe for 290 projects.
This
investment has delivered benefits for people, businesses, the environment and
communities. It has supported around 190.800 people to gain qualifications and
over 62,000 into work, creating around 36,000 jobs and supporting over 10,000
businesses. In agriculture too over 16,000 farm businesses across Wales benefit
from being part of the EU. Only this week for instance it was announced that our long suffering dairy industry is to receive £3.2m, averaging some £1800 per farm, to ameliorate some of the losses they have experienced as a result of price cuts and market volatility.
UKIP’s answer-
Wales don’t worry. We’ll ensure that the UK Government will provide the money
to fill the gap after we’ve left the EU. Really! The Tory Government does not
even fund Wales properly now! What is
more has anyone contemplated what action those significant and important foreign based companies
operating in Wales might take if we get out of Europe?. Coming out of Europe will not be a simple matter just
consider how many years it will take to unravel all the regulations and treaties the
UK has with the EU and other countries. It will take cause years of uncertainty.
So it’s high time
that we roll up our sleeves and get to work.