A further thought about the UKIP

[andrewducker]

Plenty of stuff I've seen recently talks about the UKIP and how most of their supporters aren't actually focussed on Europe. UKIP have successfully positioned themselves in the "Modern life is rubbish" slot, with Europe, gay marriage, political correctness gone mad, health & safety gone mad, immigration, and various other things that the Daily Mail vent about all lumped in together as "stuff which we should not put up with".

But I wonder what the thing which pushed most of them over the edge was. We've seen a massive surge in popularity over the last couple of years, and I wonder if it's poverty that's done it (plenty of studies show that poor people tend to be more small-c conservative, focussed on the in-group and generally selfish, for understandable reasons), or if this is happening because a bunch of previous Conservative supporters have simply given up on the Conservatives ever going back to being Their Kind of People (my understanding is that the first 15% of the UKIP in any area are Conservative supporters, and after that they're equally Conservative, Labour, and protest-voters-who-used-to-vote-Lib-Dem).

Of the latter, I strongly suspect that it will have been gay marriage that pushed them over the edge. It seems unlikely to have been fiscal policy/taxes, and I can't think what else they'd have been depending on the Conservatives doing that they haven't lived up to. Any thoughts?

Edit: Just to make it entirely clear, I am _not_ saying "All UKIP supporters hate gay people.", nor do I believe any such thing.

Comments

[miss_s_b]

suspect you're right

[matgb]

It's been building-I remember saying in 2009 that UKIP wouldn't get an MP until there was a Tory govt, then they'd take one in a by election in a previously safe seat near the end of the Parliament.

I stand by that prediction, if a by election happens in a safeish Tory seat at some point in the next 2 years they'll be in with a good chance of taking it if they don't mess up.

It's a momentum that's been growing ever since 1999 when PR came in for Euro elections.

[hunningham]

Not poverty, but fear. And I think immigration is the biggest fear - you're looking over your shoulder and "they" are coming to get you - your job, your social society, your money. And the conservatives haven't stopped it.