Ramsgate, Uxbridge and election menace
Am in Odd Fellows Hall in Ramsgate for the Ukip Thanet South constituency selection meeting. It’s been moved at late notice as the previous hall owners took fright. The local association speak of having around 300 members but however many turn up the meeting is a bit of a formality. The three other candidates must know this contest was over the moment Nigel Farage said he would like to run here.
The risk is not the selection battle but the whole shift in strategy: trying to win parliamentary seats could leave Ukip with nothing. But Nigel Farage is confident they’ll get at least a handful of seats and maybe up to twenty something seats if the wind blows with them. Imagine a series of main party scandals in the run-up to the next general election and things could suddenly catch fire for Ukip. Tory private polling at the height of the Maria Miller saga showed disenchantment with main parties (already a force in the political land) can surge suddenly in today’s climate. Right now though pollsters speak of two or so seats for Ukip at most.
What would Nigel Farage actually do with any seats he might win in Westminster? He expects another close election and would love to hold the balance of power. The party unveils its manifesto in Doncaster at its conference in October but it’s unlikely to have Lib Dem style “red lines” for coalition. Senior Ukip figures talk more realistically of trying to keep in power any party that promises an in/out referendum. Which as things stand, bizarrely perhaps, could mean keeping the Tories in. Confused? And what if there is a referendum and the UK stays in? Alex Salmond-like, Nigel Farage believes the battle would continue.
Back in London tonight, London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced that he’s definitely going for the Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat for the Tories. In theory he’s back to help David Cameron win the election and in part to win over Ukip leaning Tories with a defiant message on Europe. But Boris Johnson has already unveiled a dream of EU renegotiation that goes further than David Cameron‘s outline and has out-flanked his leader by saying he would vote “no” if the EU didn’t deliver enough reform. On both of these fronts he is quite a headache to his leader (though that’s the last thing David Cameron would call him in public).
Both tonight’s developments hold menace for David Cameron – but one is blatant and the other better concealed.
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