A Crumbling Union: A referendum on Britain’s EU membership is likely. And if the country secedes, others could soon follow
A referendum on Britain’s EU membership is likely. And if the country secedes, others could soon follow its example.
In 1991 I founded the Anti-Federalist League, which changed its name in 1993 to the UK Independence Party (Ukip). I remained party leader until 1997 when, for a variety of reasons, I quit. One reason was that the party was becoming too right-wing for my liberal sensitivities. The major one was that I thought Sir James Goldmith, who had led the Referendum Party in the 1997 election, would be the torch-bearer for British Euro-scepticism in future. However, Sir James died a few months later and his party disappeared.
Hence Ukip, soon under the baleful leadership of Nigel Farage, continued to hold the torch. Farage has not been a particularly successful leader—the party has never won a seat in Parliament and has only a tiny handful of councillors. In the House of Lords it has the support of only three very right-wing peers—all Tory defectors— and in opinion polls it registers still only about 4% of the national vote. In two recent by-elections, however, it has beaten the Tories and Liberal Democrats in seats where they had no chance of winning anyway. And the coalition parties, given the state of the economy, are highly unpopular. The odd, freak poll, however, puts Ukip at 10%.
What does this mean? Probably only that, since the Liberal Democrats have entered government, the mindless, protest vote has switched to some extent to Ukip. The anti-foreign, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant vote, however, is going Ukip’s way as well. Does it mean that the country is about to vote Ukip to leave the EU? That is more difficult to say. The EU is certainly hugely unpopular but that is not due to Ukip.