War of independence

14 Apr 06
ROBERT SHRIMSLEY | The news that the UK Independence party is a magnet for - in David Cameron’s phrase - ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’ should not come as much of a surprise.

The news that the UK Independence party is a magnet for - in David Cameron’s phrase - ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’ should not come as much of a surprise.

These groups are well represented in society and political parties are always keen to reflect the electorate.

One should also draw a distinction between members and voters. It is one of the ironies and tragedies of modern politics that such important matters as governance should be left in the hands of those who wish to join political parties. So loonies, fruitcakes and yes, sadly, closet racists, can be found in pretty much all parties.

Even allowing for the possibility that there are more of them in Ukip in percentage terms, Cameron’s decision to articulate this view was still surprising. That Ukip has been a nasty thorn in the Conservative side might seem reason enough. But of course, Ukip’s ability to attract disaffected Conservative voters might have given him pause for thought.

After all, these fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists seem jolly attractive to a discomforting number of Tory supporters. Furthermore, many Ukip supporters are sane and decent and Cameron knows this.

Previous Tory leaders have also been jolly rude about Ukip but somehow Cameron’s remarks went that much further. They also seemed that little more surprising coming from the mouth of the man who has said he wants to move away from ya-boo politics.

So why did he do it? Friends say that although the comments were an accurate reflection of Cameron’s views, his remarks were delivered off the cuff and were not an intentional political gambit. Well, perhaps.

Let us consider the Cameron record so far. If there is one consistent theme of his leadership, it is the emphasis he has placed on showing the voters that his party has changed. This is a lesson taken straight from the Tony Blair playbook.

So we now have a Conservative party that is not promising to cut taxes, is promising to invest heavily in the NHS, is looking at green policies and is stressing it will not be in hock to big business.

Three days after the Ukip comment, Cameron was at his spring conference, stressing again and again that the party had to change. He delivered his speech in front of a large screen bearing the word, just in case anyone failed to get the point.

Perhaps the biggest change required is for the party to stop looking as if it is entirely ill at ease with modern Britain. There is no future for a party of the past. Loving looks back to a black-and-white world where all men behaved like Trevor Howard offer little to attract the voter of today. Hateful as it might be, there are quite a few members of the electorate who have never seen Brief Encounter. They do not long for the good old days and are accepting of Europe, gays and modern-multiracial Britain.

At the last election, the Conservatives conducted some polling on their key policies. The good news was that many proved rather popular; the bad news was that this was only until people understood them to be Conservative policies - whereupon they suddenly became rather unpopular. In other words, it wasn’t the policies that were the problem as much as the party.

So great has the public contempt for the Conservatives been that they can do little right in voters’ minds. Even when they have good policies the voters don’t want to know. To too many, the Conservatives remain nasty, bigoted, stuck-in-the-past Euro obsessives who are utterly uncomfortable with the modern world. In other words, exactly the traits Cameron has just defined in Ukip. It doesn’t matter how fair or unfair this is, it is what voters think. So if being beastly about Ukip helps Cameron to show the voters that his party has changed, so much the better.

It has become a cliché of modern politics that the Tories need their equivalent of Tony Blair’s Clause 4 moment - a piece of theatrical symbolism to define the change in the party to voters. For many modernising Tories, their party’s Clause 4 is Thatcherism.

But Cameron’s single greatest achievement - some might say his single achievement - has been to recognise that it is not Margaret Thatcher or any of its particular policies. The Conservative Party’s Clause 4 is the Conservatives themselves.

The new Tory leader wakes up each day thinking: ‘How do I make the public stop hating us?’ He cannot rid his party of its members and certainly not by one policy vote.

But, by talking about the environment, seeming compassionate and being vile about Ukip - which, in many places, seems insufficiently distinct from his party - Cameron is attempting to effect the same change.

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