As I write this there are two days to go before the UK general election (7th May 2015) and I find myself with some strong thoughts on the process that I want to commit to the interwebs.
The first is that we have a weird example of the wisdom of the crowds. It seems almost certain that no one party will win an overall majority – an unusual situation for the UK – and the country as a whole seems quite sanguine about that possibility. I think this is quite a rational position on the part of the electorate, as least as far as the “presidential” aspect of the campaign goes. When I look at the party leaders as individuals and as politicians, my overriding thought is “I don’t want any of these muppets running the country”. It’s pretty certain that’s the outcome that we’ll achieve – a hung parliament with no single leader given a mandate. Phew.
My second thought is about the SNP and the role of Scotland. It seems likely the SNP will have a landslide in Scotland and win a huge majority of seats, and thereby become a powerbroker in the UK parliament. Seems to me the inevitable end result of that will be Scottish independence – not in the next parliament, but in the one after that. With none of the “English” parties having any electoral interest in maintaining Scotland as part of the Union, and with independence core to the SNP’s agenda, it has to happen eventually. Personally I think independence will be bad for Scotland in the short and medium term, but perhaps a great thing in the long term – and I think independence for Scotland is now essential for the parliamentary health of the rest of the UK. It seemed wrong to me that only residents of Scotland had a vote in the recent independence referendum – the opinion of the rest of the UK matters too, surely? If I get a chance I’ll be voting pro-independence next time, if nothing else to see how the experiment of nation-building in the Western world in the 21st century will turn out.
My last thought is about UKIP. It seems like these xenophobic bigots will win perhaps 15% of the popular vote, though fortunately our electoral system will deny them more than a handful of seats. (That has taken talk of proportional representation off the table for a while!) We need to take these arseholes seriously. They are not harmless figures of fun – they are organised, well funded and extremely successful at swaying popular opinion. I don’t know who is pulling the strings – it would be interesting to find out – but there is a lot more to UKIP than just Nigel Farage and a few disorganised cronies. And unfortunately their loathsomeness is not enough to guarantee they will not influence the UK’s political agenda or – god help us all – come to hold power in the future. If they did, they would turn our country into something very unpleasant indeed, perhaps more akin to today’s Russia: xenophobic, economically isolated and morally bankrupt.
Early in the election campaign Nigel Farage made a well-planned remark about immigrants putting a burden on NHS budgets by requiring HIV treatment. It was widely reported and widely criticised, but I think most commentators miss the point: this was a very clever piece of spin from Farage. He is not saying “immigrants cost the NHS money”, he is saying “immigrants have AIDS: they are gays and drug users and prostitutes. It is OK to hate them.” This is simply appalling: but it is also very clever politics.
We need to find a way to neuter UKIP’s popular appeal. I am extremely pro-European – I think withdrawal from Europe would be a disaster for the UK – but perhaps we actually need an in-out referendum to lance the boil. I’d like to see the mainstream parties engage with the electorate and win the argument that the UK belongs in Europe. Similarly with immigration – I am pro-immigration and I’d like to see that argument in the open, not as a nasty under-the-surface proxy for racism.
A last thought on UKIP. Perhaps this is the deciding argument around the renewal of Trident: if there is any possibility, however remote, that Farage and his successors might one day have their xenophobic fingers on the UK’s nuclear button, perhaps it’s time to think again about nuclear disarmament.