I’ve watched in disappointment bordering on despair as Ukip has ceased to be a radical alternative to the political establishment Many people lazily define politics according to left and right, whether that’s to do with economics or authoritarianism. But over recent years, another axis has emerged – populism versus establishment. Right-populist parties have sprung up (eg in Sweden and the Netherlands), as have left-populist ones (eg in Portugal and Greece) and even centre-populist ones (Spain has both left and centre populist parties). When I first joined Ukip, I was attracted to the anti-establishment nature of the party. I don’t fit well with Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat bland establishment mediocrity – as I was reminded at a polling station with only those options on the ballot paper on Thursday. The Ukip of old loved to breathe new life into policy – whether it was no tax on minimum wage (raising the tax threshold to help the poorest earners, later part-copied by the Conservatives), direct democracy (letting people call binding referendums on certain key issues) or replacing the hugely bureaucratic VAT with a much simpler tax on retail sales. Continue reading...
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