Will UKIP Do Well in the General Election?

What came out of the Scottish Independence referendum and the fall out to it was the desire for more devolved power across all the UK especially the call for English votes for English decisions. Now I will wait to see what proposals are put forward (if any!) before coming to an opinion but what is clear is that people want to be closer to power and seems to run contrary to a European Union that has centralised power with a single currency.

Nothing will change, it will still be the old boys in power expecting the poorer people to pay them.

andy w said:

What came out of the Scottish Independence referendum and the fall out to it was the desire for more devolved power across all the UK especially the call for English votes for English decisions.

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If that's the case, then why bother with the union at all?

Well that is the crux of the matter. How much power could be devolved to the regions/nations and what powers should remain with Westminster?
Personally my concern is how everything is so London centric and their is a detachment with the rest of the UK and I believe the entire government should be moved out of London a la Brasila style and relocate it in Leeds or Manchester. The answer is not to lose sovereignty and have the Centralists at Brussels to be in control.

Are you really more concerned about control from Brussels than control from London?

I'm tempted to say F#ck them Both! What concerns me is how quickly our relationship with Europe has changed since joining the EEC which morphed into the EU, the expansion from a tight Western Europe grouping to taking in so many disparate Eastern European countries, a vision of an Unitied Europe 'from the Atlantic to the Urals', a single currency that can only survive with a centralised United States of Europe.
Now thankfully we aren't in the Eurozone and have much more control of our own economy than those within it, but where do we stand with further EU integration? Cameron wants to negotiate a much looser relationship with Europe but this seems unlikely with the Centralists at Brussels.

I doubt the EU will get to the Urals any time soon - and, if it did, then it would actually reach Vladivostok, unless Russia breaks up.

It might reach the Caucasus one day, though.

Well I imagine you knew who I was referring to with that vision!

Geography was never his strong-point.

A little less ambitious than an empire on which the Sun never sets.

Alee said:

I know sod all about politics but.....I think nearly everyone i know voted UKIP. ...

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What does that say about the company you keep

cbaz said:

Nothing will change, it will still be the old boys in power expecting the poorer people to pay them.

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2013
Share of income earned by top 1% earners: 12%
Share of income tax paid by top 1% of earners: 27%
The 'poor' have never had it so good.

Much as I like the notion of devolving power to the English regions - London and the southeast have been sucking resources away from the rest of the country for far too long, and it would be very good indeed to see the power and self-importance of the denizens of Westminster cut down to size - I do fret about the quality of local government we might subsequently be faced with. I mean, look around you. Petty corruption, favours for friends, freemasonry (amazing that this hasn't been prised open and blasted away yet. Or perhaps it has), a huge degree of lack of accountability to the electorate. People not daring to speak out for fear of being victimised. Misuse by local authority officials of access to personal data. All of which plague small local administrations such as that from which we benefit in Stafford. Grandiose schemes for big shops and aspirational houses in the town centre being sold to the punters using snake-oil methods. When and where did we get to authorise the building of a fancy new headquarters for the county council with our own money? Were we ever given the chance to choose between this and a decent bus service? Course not. That, I fear, is the quality of public service, but with access to more public money and more opportunities for passing business the way of well-heeled mates and for acquiring lavish offices, that we'd see in this neck of the woods if this lot were given half a chance. Now, anybody know somebody on the planning committee?

So back to the original question, Will UKIP do well in the next General Election?

After last night's results you would think that they would however I have feeling that come the General Election a lot of voters will return to the Tories and Labour like a bunch of naughty school kids!

The only thing that the Tories can say is that if you vote for UKIP you will get Labour and Labour seem to believe that all UKIP voters are ex-Tory voters, let's hope UKIP prove them both wrong and come next May they hold the balance of power not the Lib Dems!

The interesting part will be watching party's attempting to come up with all sorts of cheap political gestures in the next few months, the French cancel speeding tickets .

Roland said:

let's hope UKIP prove them both wrong and come next May they hold the balance of power not the Lib Dems!

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I think you are seriously deluded if you think they will be any different to any of the others if they do get elected and do hold the balance of power.

It could get quite interesting - a right-wing party that needs working class votes......

It is surprising to see them do quite so well in Clacton ? you might think that with more spent on services/infrastructure and the jobs market being more buoyant, in the se, that the recovering economy effect would shore up Tory votes ? Labour are also failing to capitalise on perceived government weaknesses and pick up votes. It could be that UKIP are in the right place at the right time and win big come the next election.

Maybe we should merge the 'Cameron is a Wanker' and 'Miliband Worse than Kinnock' threads into this one as they are the main reason a fringe party has come from 3% at the last General Election to have the momentum to get 15 to 20% next year. Both Cameron and especially Miliband do not connect with ordinary people and only play lip service to their concerns.
The 'narrative' was that UKIP would fade away after the Euro elections but with only 6 months to go before the General Election they are on a roll across all areas of England ( except London!).

I doubt UKIP will get more than a handful of MPs, but the effect they'll have on the other 3 (or 4 if you count nationalists) will be amazing. I thought the Tories would be the natural losers with the emergence of UKIP, but now I'm not so sure, as it looks like they're taking a significant number of votes off labour (and the LibDems) as well. In that respect, UKIP's performance in the by-election oop norf was more significant than their performance in the one dahn sarf.