Nick Graham
The Clacton
by-election:
confirmation
of a four party
political system?
By-elections usually produce
psephological anomalies. Their
dynamics tend to favour smaller parties,
where the small scale of the contest is
more in line with their resources, and
given their isolation from the national
contest, voters can flirt with them
without the worry of affecting the
national picture.
For years the Liberal Democrats were the party voters would look to
in order to cast one’s protest vote in the middle of a parliamentary
term, until they entered government in 2010 and the desire to
express one’s dissatisfaction with the political class had to be done
in a different way. Recently, in local elections, European elections,
and now in by-elections, the United Kingdom Independence Party
(UKIP) has found itself thrust centre stage, and is seen by many
voters as the party that best articulates their dissatisfaction with
the political and economic elite as a whole, despite its leader, Nigel
Farage, being an ex-banker educated at one of Britain’s top public
schools.
But there’s something altogether different about the party’s
breakthrough win in the seaside resort town of Clacton, snatched
from the Conservatives after the defection of the libertarian MP
Douglas Carswell in August. That action in itself prompted a further
defection and subsequent by-election in the South East to be held in
November, this time in Rochester, where former Conservative MP
Mark Reckless will hope to emulate Douglas Carswell and win UKIP’s
second Westminster seat. If he does, then further comparisons will
inevitably be made with the Gang of Four who broke away from the
Labour Party in 1981, and who subsequently went on to merge with
the Liberal Party to make up a third electoral force in British politics.
The predicament in which David Cameron now finds himself,
seemingly unable to placate those backbenchers intent on separation
from the EU, harks back to John Major’s time in office, when he was
unable to unite his party’s pro-business, pro-EU wing with its socalled Europhobe wing. Indeed, the Clacton by-election is merely the
latest sign of a civil war that dates back to the early 1990s, a division
Nick Graham
The Clacton
by-election:
confirmation
of a four party
political system?
(continued)
which seems to be moving inexorably towards an outright separation
of the party’s Europhobic right wing from its more centrist one. The
parallel with the centrist vs. Tea Party split within the Republican
Party in the United States is more noticeable every year, with the
right in Britain similarly split along progressive and integrationist vs.
isolationist and conservative lines. An increasingly integrated world culturally, racially and economically - is one that the left appears to
have been far more efficient at adapting to than the right in both of
these cases.
On the surface, it is David Cameron who has the most to fear from
UKIP, with one survey suggesting that although UKIP will likely only
win around 10 seats outright at Westminster next May, its influence
could be crucial in up to 200 constituency contests, the majority of
these being Tory held seats. David Cameron’s warning not ‘to go
to bed’ with Nigel Farage was much more than mere conference
rhetoric: it aimed to tackle head-on the fact that desertion from the
Tories to UKIP could help return a Labour Prime Minister to power,
though under these circumstances it would be a victory very much
by default.
Is this the beginning of an era of four party politics? The litmus test
will surely be next May at the general election, when, as is often the
case, voters usually return to their traditional political allegiances.
However, if Peter Kellner of YouGov is correct, UKIP could well hold
the balance of power in another hung parliament. Douglas Carswell,
as the party’s first Member of Parliament, suddenly occupies a
frontline position in British politics, although he contrasts sharply
with his party’s leader, not just in style but also apparently on issues,
as their disagreement over whether to allow HIV positive migrants
to the UK suggests. UKIP may also find that it is relatively
straightforward to rally around that which you oppose, far less so
around that which you favour. Assuming UKIP are serious in their
intentions to establish themselves as a fourth major party, then
what may ultimately prove their undoing are the requirements of
party politics, namely, the coherence of the party’s message and
the feasibility of one’s plans for government office.
However, the assumption that UKIP will only harm the Conservatives
was debunked in Heywood and Middleton where a by-election was
held on the same night. A Labour heartland seat, the party only
narrowly held it by 617 votes over second placed UKIP. Labour’s
majority in the seat at the 2010 election was over 10,000, and equally
as dramatic was the manner in which UKIP’s share of the vote rose
from 2.6% to over 38.7%. Whilst a turnout of 36% was a key factor
in explaining why so many Labour voters didn’t show up, the rise
of UKIP can partly be explained by the declining appeal of the
Conservatives there, who saw their share of the vote plummet by
half to just 12.3%, a worrying trend in a region where the
Conservatives need to make significant inroads if they are to
obtain an outright majority of 326 seats. What should alarm Labour
strategists more was the reminder once again of the lacklustre level
of enthusiasm for Ed Miliband’s Labour Party in places such as the
North West.
Questions
What are the major differences between a Pressure
Group and a Political Party?
How has the result of the Rochester by-election
affected the dynamics between the political parties both
at Westminster and the wider country?
To what degree is the Conservative Party under David
Cameron a united one?