Bernard Deacon's Blog, page 70

Minority parties 3: from Whigs to Class War

With this third blog in my series on minority parties standing in May we arrive at non-socialist British parties to the left of Labour. Not surprisingly, there’s quite a few, including single-issue parties and those emerging out of or influenced by liberal and anarchist political traditions.

Let’s start with single-issue parties. The largest of these is the National Health Action Party. This is fighting for a ‘healthy NHS’ and is anti-privatisation, wants to renegotiate the disastrous PFI contracts and ensure adequate staffing levels. One of its founders in 2012 was Dr Richard Taylor, MP for Wyre Forest in Worcestershire from 2001 to 2010 on a health concern platform. He’ll be joined in May by at least 12 other candidates. These are mainly in the south, eight are doctors and all but one of the rest has a strong background of involvement in the NHS. This includes one standing in Cornwall – Rik Evans in Truro and Falmouth.

Although focusing on the NHS, the NHAP has a suite of other progressive policies – rejection of austerity, reform of Parliament, opposition to the TTIP, investment in social housing and ending tuition fees. The Labour Party, architect of PFI and facilitator of marketization ‘reforms in the NHS from 1997 to 2010, clearly recognises the danger from a party genuinely committed to the spirit of 1945. In 2012 one of its activists called for the NHAP to be ‘strangled at birth‘. Which I suppose the Liberals could have said about Labour in 1900.

The Peace Party was formed in 2003 and has been contesting elections since 2005. With two candidates in 2005, three in 2010 and four announced with two more possible in 2015, they’re on a roll. At this rate, they’ll be contesting half the seats by 2050. As might be guessed from the name The Peace Party is a pacifist party opposed to military intervention. Its activists are concentrated in the south east, in particular Surrey. Its rather vague, but nice, aims are for a ‘better world’, calling for ‘a compassionate and respectful society that values cooperation over competition’. Dear of ‘em.

Then we come to three parties that call for constitutional change. The oldest, formed way back in 2009, is the Pirate Party. Its three candidates (two in Manchester and one in London) stand for the ‘right to share knowledge’ and are worried about the growing sense of powerlessness and level of surveillance in society. Its manifesto in 2010 was crowd-sourced, a first in British politics, and this method is again being used to upgrade it for this year.

While the Pirate Party has achieved some limited electoral success in Sweden, Germany, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg and, in particular, Iceland, in the UK its candidates have yet to break through the 0.5% average vote score. (As does The Peace Party). With just three candidates so far announced for 2015 it may be struggling to attain the total of nine candidates achieved in 2010.



Above and Beyond is a new party which aims to force a debate on how Britain is governed. Its own position is clear. A healthy democracy is ‘pure illusion’ with the parliamentary elite mired in ‘corruption, criminal activities and lies’. Its answer is deceptively simple – a ‘none of the above’ option on ballot papers. In pursuit of this, it has three candidates declared so far, all northern based. Its election video is well worth watching though, if only for its hints of what might have been – a properly populist but progressive party.

Also feeding off the residual anger left from the expenses scandal is 30-50, which has a rather clever strapline – ‘linking the idealism of the young with the experience of the mature‘. It’s against the careerism and party influence that dominates Parliament and calls for 12 extra seats in the Commons, to be reserved for Independents. So far, its only problem has been attracting enough of those idealistic young and mature old, as it has just one candidate – in Bethnal Green.

There’s also a more catch-all new micro-party in the field. Something New has announced two candidates in Surrey and Sussex with the aim of bringing British democracy into the 21st century (thus leaping directly from the 19th presumably). Its values are optimism, civil liberty, public ownership, strong social safety nets and ‘true’ democracy. With policies of a written constitution, PR, devolution, a higher minimum wage, premium public services and a carbon-free energy sector by 2030. Probably dangerously radical for a political system trapped in the 1800s and an electorate that finds Ukip the height of fashion.

Two other parties trace their origins more explicitly back to the Liberals. The Democratic Reform Party has one candidate in Lewisham and calls for cooperation, participation, progressive reform and innovation. It emerged (or re-emerged) in 2011 and is inspired by the Radical Reform Group, a social liberal ginger group inside the old Liberal Party in the 1950s and 60s.

The other new party is, rather more surprisingly, the Whig Party, which offers us a ‘fresh choice’, by returning to the 18th century with the ‘spirit of Whiggery‘, meaning ‘intelligence, decency and progress’. It contrasts this with the spirit of Toryism, which now grips the Coalition parties, Labour and Ukip. If the 18th century Whigs were really more progressive than Clegg’s Liberal Democrats then that proves how much the latter have decayed.

The Whigs have announced three candidates in south east England so far and are nothing if not optimistic. They reckon ‘there are enough Whiggish people out there for Whig candidates to be returned to Parliament’. That’s people who believe in ‘human rights, diversity, social justice, democracy, love of country and confidence’. Have they never visited Newquay?

And what about the (real) Liberal Party? This was formed in the 1990s by former Liberals unwilling to join with the SDP. In the last election the number of Liberal candidates slid from 14 in 2001 and 2005 to just six. Unfortunately for them, they’ve been unable to tap into disillusion with the Lib Dems and capture large numbers of disaffected Lib Dem activists. Their average vote however in 2005 and 2010 remained at 3.1%, stupendously good for a micro-party. But this was boosted by Liverpool West Derby, where the Liberals have repeatedly saved their deposit. It’s all quiet on the Liberal Party website, with no sign of any candidates yet.

Two minority parties go a lot further than these Liberal leftovers. The Reality Party was founded last year by Mark (Bez) Berry, formerly of the Happy Mondays and a ‘media personality’. In his politics he’s a somewhat less well known version of Russell Brand. The Reality Party calls for revolutionary change ‘in as short a time as possible’, which seems an unnecessary clarification. It’s against corruption, privatisation, globalisation and corporate tax avoidance while being in favour of renewable energy, equality and the EU, wanting to replace poverty, war and corruption with equality, health and peace.

Can’t grumble about that although one its three candidates claims Salford is a ‘sacred and beautiful part of mother earth’, which is more debatable. Meanwhile, in Thanet South they’re adding to the circus caravan opposing Farage, standing a real pub landlord against him rather than a comedy one though.

The largest non-socialist, non-Celtic leftist intervention promises to come from Class War. This was an anarchist group founded by Ian Bone back in 1982. Formerly content with publishing a newspaper, Ian Bone is now redefining anarchist activity to include electoral intervention. Class War believes ‘there is a class war raging and we are losing it‘ and calls for a ‘furious and coordinated political offensive against the ruling class … by the brick and the ballot’. With a strong dose of irreverent and robust language that would not be welcomed by the BBC, Class War brings a new dimension to far left electoral politics, often drab, dour and over-serious. They’re claiming that 26 candidates will stand under their tasteful banner, although this remains to be seen when nominations close in April. Meanwhile, the ‘ruling class have us by the throat – they need a sharp kick in the bollocks.’

Which begs a wider question. Why are virtually all the people associated with the parties in this blog, or micro-parties in general come to that, men?

Polls latest – swing-back to coalition government?

The polls are beginning to tell a consistent story. This week’s YouGov daily polling suggests that the Tories have pulled up to their highest level of support since August. As Labour’s share remains stubbornly stuck the Tories have now edged ahead for only the second time since last April.

Now
Late January
change




Conservatives
33.6%
32.7%
+0.9%




Labour
33.4%
32.9%
+0.5%




Lib Dems
7.6%
6.8%
+0.8%




Ukip
13.8%
15.0%
-1.2%




Greens
6.2%
7.4%
-1.2%




SNP/PC
4.4%
4.5%
-0.1%

Comparing these weekly averages over the recent period also suggests three other trends.

Liberal Democrat support has risen for the third week running. It’s now back at levels not seen since October.
Ukip’s share is at its lowest level since August. This reinforces other polls that are generally indicating a loss of Ukip support since the New Year.

From UK Polling Report

As voters begin to revert to the Lib Dems, support for the Greens has continued to slide for the third week running. It’s now at its lowest level this year and almost two percentage points below the peak of its ‘surge’, which ended in mid-January. It will hardly have been helped by the embarrassingly awful media interviews given by Natalie Bennett this week and interestingly its lowest share in the polls was recorded after the LBC debacle.

The fall in Ukip and Green support and rise in that for the coalition parties may indicate that the expected swing back to the Establishment parties is under way as people begin to focus on the General Election. Or maybe it’s just temporary. We can only hope.

What do these trends mean for Cornish seats? On the basis of these polls and last year’s constituency polling South East Cornwall and Truro look safe for the Tories, while they’re now also clearly in the lead in St Austell (with Ukip and the Lib Dems within touch) and Camborne (with Ukip within 10 points). Meanwhile, North Cornwall and St Ives are dead heats between Tories and Lib Dems.

Unless this rollback to the familiar can be halted, at present it’s just a question of whether the Tories win four or six seats in Cornwall.

Labour in Cornwall: new candidates and old

As Labour’s leadership veers dizzily from neo-liberalism (more austerity) to radicalism (end MP’s second jobs) to tax cuts for the well-off funded by tax rises for the even more well-off, what’s the party up to in Cornwall?

In South East Cornwall, they’ve chosen a new candidate. Declan Lloyd (of Looe?) has been trying to get selected since November, then enquiring whether the Labour Party had a ‘possible opening’ for his candidature. They did and his dream has now come true. He’ll be fighting with the Greens for fourth place as the more right wing parties squabble over the seat.

You wait for ages for young candidates and then you get two. Or at least you do in the South East. At just 18, Declan joins Ukip’s Bradley Monk, also just out of short trousers, as young candidates in that constituency. Unlike Bradley however, Declan is an ardent supporter of animal rights, which should go down well with the foxhunters of rural east Cornwall, and is campaigning under a ‘one-nation’ slogan. Funny, that used to be appropriated by the Tories in the good old days. No longer though.

Not such happy times further west. In Truro and Falmouth it emerged that Hanna Toms’ sudden departure was the result of an oversight over housing benefit. This then triggered the predictable ridiculous bile from commentators such as so-called Conservative blogger and shameless self-publicist Guido Fawkes. [Update: Labour has lost no time in choosing Stuart Roden to replace Hanna Toms. Stuart is a full time tarde union officer, being regional [sic] organiser of UNISON. A member of the Labour Party for more than 40 years, this is a safe, if moderate, pair of hands. The party has gone for old Labour after the experience of new Labour in the shape of Hanna Toms, who only joined after the Great Betrayal of the Lib Dems in 2010]

Even further west, Michael Foster continues desperately to pour money into buying Camborne and Redruth. Unfortunately, his two appearances at Tremough student hustings haven’t gone down so well. At the first he was described as ‘the worst person of the night … arrogant and rude’, while in the second he lost out badly to the Green spokesperson. Still, Michael can console himself that the student vote in Camborne and Redruth is hardly massive. And he still has a lot of money to spend.

Minority parties 2: Christians, unclassified and loonies

This second blog about the minority parties standing in May brings together an eclectic bunch that aren’t easily slotted into traditional right-left political dimensions. Although on reflection a few might be more at home in the first blog on the far right parties.

Let’s start with Christian parties. Three were active in 2010 but this time only the Christian Peoples Alliance (CPA) has announced any candidates so far. Even then, it’s not very forthcoming. Just two are mentioned explicitly on its website menu and one of their candidate pages has no content. In 2010 the CPA put up 17 candidates. Although they have some historical support in Newham in London, they’re unlikely to reach that total this time, despite rumours of seven selected so far.

The CPA describes itself as a Christian Democratic party and was formed in 2000. It stands for ‘righteousness and godliness’. Which involves being anti-abortion and against gay marriage apparently. Despite that it has some progressive policies in other areas, wanting to end the cap on national insurance contributions so that those earning more than £100,000 pay a lot more tax. It came out against the Iraq war and is greenish on the environment, although rather vague to say the least on global warming. Here it demands a ‘biblical, scientific assessment of ecological research’. Hopefully, this will be rather more robust than the claim of its current leader that the storms of early 2014 were a sign of God’s anger over gay marriage. And the application of its former leader last year to join Ukip is not exactly a sign that its progressiveness runs deep.

CPA candidates were actually well outnumbered in 2010 by a new kid on the block. This comprised the 71 hopefuls from the Christian Party, which split off from the CPA in 2004, gaining some support from black churches. The Christian Party incorporated members of Operation Christian Vote, an evangelist party mainly active in Scotland. There, it recorded the best performance ever for a Christian party. In 2005 it saved its deposit in Na h-Eileanan an Iar, coming ahead of the Tories and just 48 votes behind the Lib Dems.

The Christian Party is more socially conservative than the CPA. For example it wants even more cuts in the public sector and thinks climate change is a ‘more realistic’ description than global warming, as there is no evidence for the latter. And even if there was it’s not caused by mankind but by ‘solar’ (?) On the other hand it suggests observing a day of rest on the Sabbath would help reduce carbon emissions. Better safe than sorry I guess. It’s not announced any candidates of its own yet but is calling for all other candidates to sign up to its Declaration of British Values, which turn out to be freedom of conscience for Christians, opposition to Sharia and European law, support for a referendum on EU membership, and opposition to gay marriage and abortion.

Meanwhile, the Justice for Men and boys (J4MB) party believes that the human rights of men and boys in the UK have been assaulted by the state. Equality of gender outcomes is ‘social engineering’. The party was founded in 2013 by a former Tory and is putting up three candidates in the Nottingham area, a place with a historically high level of female employment and presumably lots of anti-feminists.

While J4MB might have been transferred into the far right blog (along with the Christian Party) what are we to make of the National Liberal Party? Its website, while being anti-EU, also states that the NLP is anti-globalisation, anti-surveillance society and offers the Swiss model of federalist self-determination. Furthermore, its sole named candidate so far is Sockalingam Yogalingam, a Tamil standing in Ruislip on a platform of support for Tamil self-determination (in Rusilip?). Yet key organisers of the NLP were revealed last year to be former members of British nationalist parties, the BNP, NF and the now defunct Third Way. Confusing.

There’s a whole host of one-man (very rarely one-woman) band parties registered with the Electoral Commission. Many of these have websites but thankfully not many have yet announced actual candidates for May. One that has is Alter Change. This curiously named party was formed, it says, ‘to make society better’, with ‘moral, ambitious and progressive’ policies, of which it lists 71. These include banning debt collectors, conversion of bus lanes into all-car lanes, reforming film classification and scaling back on devolution, along with some relatively sensible ones such as free dental check-ups, renationalising the railways and being tougher on animal cruelty. The Party Leader and Treasurer is Shaun Jenkins and the sole candidate entered on the party’s ‘comprehensive list’ of parliamentary candidates is … Shaun Jenkins, who puts himself forward to represent the lucky folk of Cardiff North.

Not all micro-parties offer an intellectually incoherent smorgasbord of policies. The Young Peoples Party (YPP) has been described as ‘geolibertarian’. This combines libertarianism and Georgism. For my Cornish reader(s), that’s not Andrew Georgism but a liking for the Land Value Tax of Henry George. But, although intellectually coherent on the economy, the YPP’s other policies are vague. For example they’re ‘unconvinced’ global warming is happening and have ‘no strong opinions’ on devolution. Or they verge on the barmy, like removing traffic lights.

While the YPP’s stance on the monarchy – they’re ‘happy’ with it – doesn’t sound that libertarian, their general grasp of political affairs may also give pause for thought. Their website oddly states ‘When will the next General Election be held? Your guess is as good as mine’. Does no-one in the YPP have time to read the papers? Not that their two candidates look very likely to storm Westminster on behalf of geolibertarianism anywhere in the near future. Their party meetings seem to take place in a pub off Leicester Square where supporters are asked to look for the table with a YPP leaflet on it. Sounds like a Lib Dem meeting unless it’s a massive table.

FUKP tweets

Pubs are also the natural habitat of the Free United Kingdom Party (FUKP), whose acronym is proving too much for the poor old Guardian, which describes comedian Al Murray’s party as The Pub Landlord instead. This Oxford history graduate is taking on Nigel Farage in the backwoods of Thanet South (are there any woods left there?) and calls for a ‘common sense revolution’. Actually, his policies seem a lot more convincing than many of the austerity-concealing bribes emanating from the Westminster consensus.

Finally, we have the familiar old Official Monster Raving Loony Party, which declares 16 candidates on its website so far. In 2010 it managed 27 and in 2005 19, so it’s well on target to match those numbers. However, it’s beginning to look a bit tired, with ageing ‘activists’ and some feebly unfunny joke policies. They’re also in increasing danger of being outflanked on their loony wing by the supposedly serious neo-liberal policies put forward by the Con/Lib/Lab/Kipper crew.

Especially on a day when Labour appear in all seriousness to be announcing what’s in effect a future tax cut for well-paid middle class graduates (and potential Labour candidates no doubt). This is in preference to something more sensible such as restoring the Education Maintenance Allowance binned by the Coalition Government in England. But maybe it’s just a joke.

Political party donations in Cornwall: all is revealed

The media recently reported the reliance of the Tory Party on hedge funds, the financial sector and loot from the super-rich, while Labour continues to be dependent on the big trade unions. Both parties attracted large donations in the final quarter of 2014 and the run-up to the election. Their £8 million each in that quarter compared with a surprisingly high £3 million for the Lib Dems, £1.5 million for Ukip, just £250,000 for the Greens and a pitiful £5,000 for the SNP.

But, as the Westminster parties set about trying to buy the electorate over the next couple of months, how much money is being given directly to the local parties in Cornwall? All donations to a constituency party above £1,500 have to be reported to the Electoral Commission. The following analysis is based on details of donations provided on the Commission’s website for 2014 and the first few weeks of 2015.

Here’s the overall picture by party and constituency.

Donations of £1,500+ Jan 2014-Feb 2015 (£000s)

Camborne/

Redruth
North Cornwall
South East Cornwall
St Austell/

Newquay
St Ives
Truro/

Falmouth
Total


Conservatives
2.0
none
15.0
19.2
5.0
none
41.2


Lib Dems
16.1
none
none
12.5
7.0
5.0
40.6


Labour
119.0
none
none
none
none
4.1
123.1


Greens/MK/Ukip
none
none
none
none
none
none
none

As the Greens and MK rely on crowdfunding we can see why the three Westminster parties don’t need to bother with such small stuff. Nonetheless, there are interesting differences between the three neo-liberal, centr[al]ist parties. For instance, 60% of Tory donations came from outside Cornwall. The United and Cecil Club gave £5,000 to Steve Double’s campaign in St Austell and Newquay and another £5,000 to Derek Thomas at St Ives.

This organisation is described as ‘low profile’ and is registered at a stables in Iver, Bucks run by a former tobacco lobbyist. It’s also the bunch that organised a recent Tory fundraising bash in Knightsbridge, estimated to have raised at least £100,000 from the assorted super-rich who attended. Basically, it’s a conduit for channelling cash to Tory marginals, in the process providing some anonymity for its donors.

Steve Double has also been boosted by another £4,187 from the Tandridge Club, another shadowy organisation based in Surrey and one with presumably the same function as the United and Cecil Club. The rest of the useful Tory war chest of £19,200 at St Austell and Newquay came from local Tories at Fowey, which is increasingly resembling Surrey on Sea.

While Sarah Newton at Truro and Falmouth and Scott Mann at North Cornwall received no large constituency donations last year, George Eustice at Camborne and Redruth was grateful for £2,000 from FalFish, of Cardrew Industrial Estate, Redruth. Meanwhile, over in in South East Cornwall Sheryll Murray was also funded directly by business. In her case, she received £5,000 from the Offshore Group of Newcastle (north of Bude), a firm involved in offshore oil and gas and renewable energy. The rest of her donations came from the Torpoint Unionist Club with individuals John Cotton and Timothy Rice chipping in £2,500 each. Can this be the lyricist Tim Rice, Cornwall’s richest ‘resident’, with an estimated wealth of £150 million and a house on the Lizard?

What about the other wing of the coalition Government, the Lib Dems? Only Andrew George at St Ives has received a donation direct from business. He got £2,000 from the Chadwick brothers of Falmouth, who own the fashion firm Seasalt. There was another donation to his campaign in the shape of £5,000 in the name of Joanna Crocker.

Other Lib Dem candidates, while funded overall almost as well as the Tories, seem to be dependent on individuals rather than businesses or organisations. Or at least that’s the impression of the database. Julia Goldsworthy at Camborne and Redruth was the focus of the highest amount last year, with John Howson, Ian Wright, Neil Sherlock, Ray Hancock and Leigh Ibbotson listed as her donors. Leigh Ibbotson, presumably the property developer and investor and holiday park owner of that name based at Truro, also gave £5,000 to Simon Rix’s campaign in Truro and Falmouth. But Dan Rogerson and Phil Hutty in the east received no donations in this period.

Curiously, in St Austell and Newquay, in order to counter the challenge from the Tory funders from south east England, Steve Gilbert seems to be digging into his own pocket to the tune of £3,600. This was boosted by £8,873 (with some in kind as ‘premises’) donated in the name of Joanna Kenny, Lib Dem Cornwall Councillor for Newquay Pentire. This (and other) donations could possibly originate in local Lib Dem organisations. It’s unclear from the records.

But the really big money locally seems to be flowing to the Labour Party. Or more precisely one Labour candidate – Michael Foster at Camborne and Redruth. His campaign has benefited from £119,120 of donations over the past year, £42,727 to pay for ‘administrative services’ and £76, 392 described as ‘other’, maybe including payment for the rather well-produced newspapers which have been regularly falling onto local doormats over the past few months.

This money all comes from Fostermco Ltd, whose sole director is – you’ve guessed it – media entrepreneur and millionaire Michael Foster. The company appeared to have had a paid up capital of ten pence in June 2014. The other recorded donation for a Labour candidate in this period was in Truro and Falmouth, where £4,100 was given by the Red Rose Club of Truro and Neil Morson. But at present Labour has no candidate in this constituency. Perhaps they should hand over the cash to neighbouring Camborne and Redruth and really try to buy that constituency.

Update

Leigh Ibbotson is chair and fundraiser for Truro/Falmouth Lib Dems.

Ray Hancock is Lib Dem party secretray for Camborne, Redruth & Hayle

Minor parties: the far right

Ever since first getting acquainted as a small child barely out of nappies with the ever-changing intricacies of electoral politics, I’ve been fascinated by minority parties. Those brave souls on the margins seemed a lot more interesting than the suits in the centre, with their bland promises and disingenuous half-truths. I don’t have to agree with them but, like a botanist or geologist classifying rare specimens, I find them of never-ending interest.

Of course, in those days before the internal combustion engine was invented, the marginal fringe of British politics was underpopulated territory. It mainly consisted of the Communist Party, kept alive by subventions from the former Soviet Union, and SNP/Plaid Cymru in Scotland and Wales, together with an assortment of Independents, proto-fascists and one-man bands of varying degrees of eccentricity.

Over the past 20 or 30 years however there’s been a veritable explosion of the fringe. In the meantime, the SNP and Plaid have become main parties, too successful to retain minor party status, and they’ve even been joined there these days by Ukip and the Greens.

There’s now so many minor parties jostling for attention on the far reaches of electoral visibility that one blog describing them all is impossible. Instead, they warrant a series of pieces, so here’s the first, which looks at the current state of the far right, before moving leftwards in later blogs.

Far right minor parties in Britain are in a sorry state, having been swamped by the Ukip tide. In fact, you can almost feel sorry for the British National Party. Here’s an unashamedly racist party which almost broke through into the big time, only to see its ungrateful supporters run off in droves to vote for a party which denies being racist at all. Ukip’s 1950s nostalgia and its nuttier and more naïve style has proved far more attractive to the media, thus allowing it to attain the major party status denied to the altogether more threatening BNP.

Yet back in 2010 the BNP contested over half the seats, more than the Greens. In fact, the average vote for its 338 candidates – at 3.7% – was higher (just) than the 3.6% achieved by Ukip’s 558 hopefuls. Moreover, the BNP saved a greater proportion of deposits, 21% compared with Ukip’s 18%. In the years from 2006 to 2009 the BNP had come close to making the far right’s first electoral breakthrough, winning over 50 council seats, MEPs and a Greater London Assembly member. Expectations were raised, but the failure to achieve them led to collapse, despite the relatively encouraging showing in 2010. Instead, the BNP only served to ensure the rise of Ukip, by making the latter party seem more acceptable in contrast.

The party duly imploded, resulting in the eventual expulsion of its former Leader Nick Griffin and a catastrophic fall in membership. At present the BNP has just one declared candidate in place – at Boston & Skegness. Many observers reckon it will struggle to put up the 89 candidates needed to qualify for a party political broadcast. However many appear, it’s likely the number won’t be anywhere near 300 and the proportion losing their deposit much higher than last time. Nonetheless, BNP support was always quite concentrated geographically – more so in fact than that of Ukip. Potential reservoirs of support remain in East London and south Essex, the West Midlands or the North West and when the Ukip bubble inevitably bursts expect a resurgence from the BNP.

Or perhaps from one of its successor parties. As in 2012-13 various splinter parties were formed by disillusioned former BNP members These include Patria, standing in England’s Deep South at Bournemouth and Chichester. Or there’s the British Democratic Party, the brainchild of Andrew Brons, former BNP MEP. For a time this looked as if it would take over the far right mantle from the BNP, but its website has become a lot quieter recently and it’s yet to announce any candidates, even though promising it’ll be standing somewhere come May.

These parties tend to be linked by a virulent Islamophobia, which serves as their key message. As it does for LibertyGB also founded in 2013, but whose founder and candidate at Luton is a former Ukip member rather than scion of the BNP.

And then there’s two other parties who pre-exist the BNP’s existential crisis but have also received renegades fleeing that party. These are the English Democrats, who espouse a policy of independence for England, but not devolution to its regions. They’ve named 20 candidates so far, but this is well down on the 107 they put up in 2010, saving one deposit and with an average score of 1.3%. The English Democrats, despite areas of relative strength in South Yorkshire, look to be in danger of being crushed by the Ukip bandwagon.

Finally, there’s the oldest surviving far right party – the National Front – which almost broke through in the 1970s, before being made irrelevant by Thatcherite Conservatism. The NF has a policy for everything and allies its Islamophobia with the defence of rural communities and the rural environment – a sort of cross between the BNP, the Countryside Alliance and an even more right wing version of Ukip. But the NF has its own problems, having suffered internal splits over the past few years and finding itself de-registered by the Electoral Commission.

Overall, the far right’s total of 23 candidates declared so far looks pitiful when compared with the 462 candidates these same parties put up last time, or even the 156 who stood for them in 2005. Ukip has succeeded in monopolising the far right vote, at least temporarily.

Polls: phony war causes little collateral damage

Hardly any changes in the average of the YouGov daily polling this past week. Labour maintains a small but consistent 1% lead over the Tories, Ukip and SNP are both stable. The only noticeable shift has been from Greens to Lib Dems. The latter have enjoyed their highest ratings for three months, a whole one percentage point above their dismal lowest rating achieved last month.

More encouragingly for Clegg, they’ve been ahead of the Greens in three polls running, the first time that’s happened since back in November. Could this be the beginning of that long-awaited shift back from the challenger parties to the old Westminster consensus parties? The movement is small and may not be sustained. We’ll need at least two or three week’s polling to detect any trend.

But the slight rise may be connected with publicity garnered by a surge of candidate selections for the Lib Dems this week, bringing their total of declared candidates up to 478, from 394 this time last week. They’ve now overtaken the Greens who have 465 candidates declared and are homing in on Ukip’s 494.

Current polling can be compared with YouGov’s daily polling at the same stage of the 2010 campaign (although their methodology has changed a little). Here it is …

2010
2015
change




Conservatives
39.0%
32.4%
-6.6%




Labour
31.7%
33.4%
+1.7%




Lib Dems
17.7%
7.4%
-10.3%




Ukip
4.3%
14.6%
+10.3%




Greens
2.0%
6.6%
+4.6%




SNP/PC
2.7%
4.4%
+1.7%




Others
3.0%
1.0%
-2.0%

The really spectacular change is north of the border. In 2010 in the third week of February in Scotland Labour held a 25 point lead over the SNP in Scotland. This week that’s been reversed and the SNP continue to hold on to their 16 point lead over Labour.

Invisible candidate 2: Is Lisa Dolley really standing in Camborne and Redruth?

Some election sites, although not this one, are listing Lisa Dolley, Cornwall Councillor for Redruth North, as an Independent candidate in Camborne and Redruth for the General Election. Owner of a launderette, it’s not easy to identify the platform on which Lisa is standing. Since the announcement of her intention to stand a year ago nothing more has been heard from her.

Is she standing on very local grounds, having opposed the closure of Redruth fire station in her ward? And what does working ‘to ensure a better future for one and all’, so that everyone can enjoy a ‘decent standard of living’, quality jobs and new housing exactly mean in practice? Interestingly, on Cornwall Council Lisa Dolley has been relatively keen on housing development and the Council’s de facto population growth strategy. Which doesn’t do much to distinguish her from Tory, Labour and Lib Dem candidates in the constituency come to think of it.

Polls update: Labour opens gap. Greens overtake Lib Dems again

We’ve now had six weeks of polling since the New Year. In another six weeks nominations will be about to open for the General Election (the nominations week will probably be 1st to 9th of April). It seems a good time to assess what the polls are telling us.

If we’re looking for clear cut trends then the answer is not that much. Movement has been small since Christmas, suggesting fairly stable opinions after the considerable changes seen last year. Those involved a Labour slide, a Lib Dem fall, a Ukip rise, a later Green surge and a jump in SNP support following the Scottish referendum.

Tory support remains stable, fluctuating around the same 32-33% mark they’ve been at now for a year or so. The big unpredictable factor is the potential effect of the massive war chest this hedge-funded party has built up and the effective increase in spending limits quietly steered through by Cameron. Expect a deluge of Tory material over the next three month as they outspend Labour by three to one and try to buy the election.

Over the last three weeks Labour has opened up a slight but growing gap over the Tories. This might imply that being tough on tax dodgers and corporate fat cats’ ample pockets may not have been a bad move for Labour. But will they hold their nerve? And will the voters believe them given their record of 1997-2010 and their promises of more cuts and austerity for the next few years?

Ukip’s support has sunk a little since its high point in the second week of January. But not by much. The Greens also peaked in the third week of January and have fallen back since then. But they seem to have stabilised around 7% and most weeks remain ahead of the fifth party – the Liberal Democrats – who bump along at 7%ish, about 3% lower than where they were last April.

Meanwhile, in Scotland support for the SNP remains very solid and the gap between it and Labour has shown no sign of shrinking since the New Year.

A state of Labour: bringing forth fear, not hope

Do you ever get that unsettling feeling that you’re being followed when you wander home at night? Or that there’s someone in the room with you when you thought you were alone? Just beyond your peripheral vision, just out of … Continue reading