POPULARISTS HAVE RE-ENERGISED BRITISH POLITICS

The success of UKIP in the 2014 elections European Parliament - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/events/vote2014/eu-uk-results - was a body blow to Britain's established political classes, especially the Liberal-Democrats. Similarly, Douglas Carswell's switch from the Conservatives to UKIP, and subsequent resounding victory in the Clacton by-election has seriously rattled the Tories. Moreover, UKIP is also attracting people from the traditional left, as the result of the Heywood and Middleton by-election and this recent Guardian article show - http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/24/ukip-voter-guardian-website-nigel-farage The formula for this success is summed up in these comments from a north of England UKIP supporter: “We’re a grassroots movement; we’re an idea whose time has come. We’re on the long march to Westminster and we will get there.” Source - http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/ukip-target-success-in-barrow-and-ulverston-1.1139730#

In short, as a political operation UKIP's tactical campaign led by Nigel Farage has much in common with the modus operandi of the Scottish National Party under Alex Salmond (although both men would not welcome the comparison) as this Spectator blog notes: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/04/brothers-in-arms-ukip-and-the-snp-are-one-and-the-same/. It concludes: "Neither may reach their ultimate goal of separation from their respective unions (UK and EU) but they have both made politics more interesting and relevant to people previously disinterested. Regardless of whether you agree with them or not, it’s undoubtedly an achievement."

All this begs the question: "Why has popularism become become such a dirty word in modern politics?". In Europe, the answer goes back to the populist base of the German National Socialist and Italian Fascist movements in the twentieth century which precipitated World War II. More recently, popularisn has tended to manifest in anti-European Union parties as this article from the Financial Times describes: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/783e39b4-e4af-11e3-9b2b-00144feabdc0.html#slide0 Opposition to the EU is significantly based on challenges to the power of Brussels, particularly within the Eurozone, and the free movement of people which forms a cornerstone of the European Treaty. Although contemporary populism most often manifests in right-wing groups, in Southern Europe it is left-wing parties who have rallied supporters around these issues.

Significantly, UKIP was set up "with the aim of fielding candidates opposed to the Maastricht Treaty" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Independence_Party UKIP  The party has been the leading member of the UK's growing EU Referendum Movement which includes a number of other smaller parties. UKIP has been a controversial arrival on the British political scene, as a Wikipedia entry demonstrates, and its success has increasingly been identified with the leadership of Nigel Farage who "started a wide-ranging policy review, his stated aim being "the development of the party into broadly standing for traditional conservative and libertarian values." However, the party's appeal has extended far beyond those who might identify themselves with such political values. Farage now has a column in the left-leaning Independent - http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/nigel-farage-8931418.html - and has sought to "highlight UKIP's female, black and ethnic-minority candidates" and to distance the party from extremist politics - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27315328

Whilst UKIP's stance on EU and non EU-migration to Britain has been an important selling point, it seems that a "Farage Factor" drives the party's ratings in the polls - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Farage  In short, Nigel Farage is a consummate salesman as well as a conviction politician. The conditions for his rise to power were undoubtedly created by New Labour, and Faragiste politics are the antithesis of the Blairite values which persist in the present Coalition government. Whilst I would not predict that UKIP will secure "their ultimate goal of separation" from the European Union, in challenging the "grand projet", including HS2, of the modern national and transnational state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnationalism) and rolling back some of the frontiers of political correctness, Faragiste popularism has undoubtedly re-energised British politics, even if it has failed to grasp global climate change.

Note: The term "popularist" rather than "populist" has been used in this post with two exceptions. This article from the New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/opinion/sunday/friedman -the-rise-of-popularism.html - say of the former expression: "...I heard a new word in London last week: “Popularism.” It’s the über-ideology of our day. Read the polls, track the blogs, tally the Twitter feeds and Facebook postings and go precisely where the people are, not where you think they need to go". "Populism", on the other hand, is described thus in Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism#Fascism_and_populism