Instead they should be explaining why their own policies are better.
+1 precious little of that goes on. Instead we get the negative bashing of alternatives.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
UKIP => yes to independence?
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Posted 11 years ago #
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@Stickman Which still doesn't invalidate my point.
The point I was arguing was in response to Insto, who had claimed UKIP were nothing like the NF, when in fact their policies are very similar. If you then cherry pick the EU/EEC aspect, you're setting up a straw man.
@Insto I think you misunderstand fascism.
No I don't. As a kid I was living in the area where the NF got two councillors elected, we used to see their activists and campaigners, and they stayed active for years afterwards. I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on Italian Futurism and its links with both anarchist syndicalism and Mussolini's fascist regime.
The NF were (and are) neo-fascists, a revivalist faction trying to resurrect an equivalent of Mosley's blackshirts. UKIP are a different variety, as I said quasi-fascists: having some similarities to the original strand of ideology, but not exactly the same. If you look at the far right groupings which are making gains across the EU, they all have differences of emphasis, policies, individual party quirks. I stand by my claim that UKIP are a populist, quasi-fascistic party. If you think I'm wrong it's up to you to refute that claim with whatever evidence you can supply, not accuse me of misunderstanding the ideology of fascism. That is patently not the case.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"Instead they should be explaining why their own policies are better."
Yes, but.
LibDems are in that position too, and it's certainly not working with their (previous) supporters.
Labour didn't adequately learn from Gordon Brown's 'bigotgate' moment. Miliband's admission that 'we got some things wrong' is all very well, but I'm not sure he knows which things, or how to 'fix' some of the consequences, or prevent it happening again.
UKIP has (almost) become the 'acceptable face of anti-immigration views' - Farage says 'I just want a fair system - like Australia'. There are others in his party who want 'no more immigrants' fullstop - 'then there would be no need to build more houses/Britain is full-up', others want immigrants sent back to the West Midlands or somewhere...
Scotland isn't full-up in any rational sense of population/land area ratio.
But working out a way of managing population increase (inevitable even without immigration) and finding useful things for them to do (convenient, but inadequate, shorthand = jobs) and places to live without compromising 'green belt' and meeting energy requirements without 'ruining Scotland' (© D Trump) is probably beyond the ability of politicians who (perfectly reasonably) have to listen to 'what people want'...
Posted 11 years ago # -
"The increase would be the equivalent of adding another Edinburgh to Scotland's population, the UK Government department said."
Posted 11 years ago # -
@ SRD
This is the first stage in the 'Alex Salmond loves immigrants' tale.
(Invisible subtext - "are you thinking what we are thinking?"........)
Posted 11 years ago # -
@SRD this has been covered lots of times by wingsoverscotland.com, for example here.
In summary, that's half a million people over twenty years, which is close to Scotland's current immigration rate. So, just business as usual.Posted 11 years ago # -
Or are the Greens the new LibDems in Edinburgh - the middle class sophisticate's protest vote against the main parties?
Undoubtedly there will probably be some of that. However the Lib Dem protest vote was for a party who promised to do largely the same things as the other two main parties, but perhaps in a slightly different way, and whose Governmental track record has been they do the same things as the other parties in exactly the same way.
I think most voters are savvy enough to realise that the Greens are trying to offer a radically different vision than the Lib Dems and I think that a there may be a lot of organic growth in their vote rather than simply LD defectors.
Lib Dems always used to do well in Edinburgh's middle class suburbs, particularly once it became "unacceptable" to vote Tory. I guess a lot of their vote went to Labour and SNP. Certainly the SNP vote must have come from somewhere as I never recall Edinburgh being much of a stronghold until recent Scottish Parliament elections.
Posted 11 years ago # -
That they may have come up with some of the same kinds of right wing populist policies as the NF used when they were trying to be a respectable populist right wing party is, to me, neither here nor there. We could probably find similar policies in parts of the Tory party. I'm more interested in seeing an underlying fascist ideology and some more fascist structures and methods of organisation before I think of them as fascistic.
I don't dispute that the NF (and the BNP and the EDL) were and are neo-fascists. I dispute that UKIP are fascist. Or even fascistic. They, for instance, do not use any kind Nazi or pseudo-Nazi symbolism. There has been no denial of the holocaust. No fond reminiscences of better days when upstanding people could walk down the street wearing black shirts. No kind of militaristic organisation. There is no culture of violence around UKIP. They do not march at all, never mind provocatively through predominately Asian neighbourhoods. They haven't set fire to any mosques or synagogues, attacked any shopkeepers. UKIP is not racially exclusive. It is racist. No question but fascist?
Perhaps my view of fascism is too simple, dominated by 1970s images of skinheads and violence but I don't see what it is that makes UKIP fascist. Not yet anyway.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I think there's a template doing the rounds of the London media offices to assist them with the Westminster-sponsored scaremongering campaign, along the lines of.
"<Catastrophe X> will result from independence says <Government department name Y>"
They could at least try to change the format of the headlines once in a while, you know, to mix things up a bit.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Good debate here (pintail excepted, obviously).
@Morningsider "People in Scotland already have a nationalist party to vote for (although a pro-EU one). People in England only have UKIP as a nationalist alternative"
Wouldn't you call a party that bans foreign texts from the school curriculum, sends vans round areas with lots of immigrants urging them to "go home", puts an arbitrary cap on immigration, uses military power to get its way overseas, is working on "repatriating" powers from international bodies, wants a referendum on EU membership, etc, as nationalist?
In Scotland we've come to equate support for independence with nationalism, and unionism with internationalism. But that's very much mistaken.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Crowriver: you said:
"I didn't say they were exactly the same. Just that the rise of UKIP is reminiscent of the NF's back then. UKIP's tactics may be different, but their policies are very similar. Nowadays very few political organisations do street demos and 'anti' demos leading to fights. For a start there's barely a radical left any more to provide vigorous opposition to the extreme right. UKIP are certainly smoother operators than the NF, but politically I would argue they are quasi-fascistic.
Kick immigrants out? Check.
Leave the EU/EEC? Check.
Racist remarks against black people/eastern europeans? Check."My interpretation of that would be that your tick-list is intended to demonstrate evidence of quasi-fascism.
I don't believe that a policy of leaving the EU is evidence of being fascist. There are many on all parts of the political spectrum who argue for leaving the EU. Apologies if I'm setting up a straw man (I don't think I have).
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Dave - "I can only see indy as a massive economic misstep"
I really don't understand that. I know there's a risk, but comparing an economic future inside or outisde the UK, I can't see why outside is clearly riskier.
This probably isn't the thread for this, but are you maybe influenced just by the differences in size between Scotland and England into thinking there are greater risks for us in future?
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Darkerside "Of the big three down south, only the LDs really stuck to their principles despite clear indications that it would cost them votes. Whether being steadfast but without any influence because noone voted for you is better than twisting in search of support is debatable..."
We are talking about a party who, just before the last election, got all of their MPs to sign a massive pledge on tuition fees in big black marker pens, are we not?
When the Lib Dems reneged on that promise, they didn't just damage their own party, they badly harmed the democratic life of Britain. People have come to accept that there will always be manifesto commitments that can't or won't be kept. But this was something much greater - this was the equivalent of them giving their word.
For years people have complained that Labour and the Tories are untrustworthy, fibbers, all the rest, so why vote? Those who cared about democracy would say, why not try someone else? So the first time in decades that t third party gets any influence in government, and what do they do? They toss it all overboard for cabinet seats and short money.
So now when people say, they're all liars, they'll say anything to get elected, how am I supposed to answer?
Posted 11 years ago # -
In Scotland we've come to equate support for independence with nationalism, and unionism with internationalism. But that's very much mistaken.
There were some difficult tweets for Anas Sarwar (Lab) asking him to explain the difference of Scottish vs. British (Unionist) nationalism after he got a bit gloaty about the continued need to "combat nationalism" despite the wonderful job UKIP was doing for the "Pro UK" vote (which he put himself and his party in a bloc with, alongside BNP and Britain first.) Odd bedfellows indeed.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Kaputnik, the ease with which many unionists on mainstream and social media have added BNP and Ukip votes to "their" side has been the single most disturbing thing I've seen in the whole referendum debate.
I would much, much, much prefer that people had voted Tory, Labour, Lib Dem, Green, Socialist or Christian than voted BNP or Ukip.
Would Scottish Labour's deputy leader honestly rather that people voted BNP than SNP?
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Insto, I think you are conflating fascism with nazism. The two are distinct, though the finer points of the differences were lost during WW2 and the war against 'fascism' (in fact a battle against Axis powers, not all of which were 'fascist'). Of course this conflation was perpetuated by the likes of the NF and BNP. Despite the NF's very clear ideas of white supremacism I would classify them as neo-fascist rather than neo-nazi. For an example of the latter, see Ukraine's Right Sector, currently formed into a paramilitary 'national guard' to fight separatist rebels in the east.
I don't see the organisational model for the party or the state apparatus as being as important as the ideological view. There's sometimes a fine line between 'right wing conservative' and support for fascism. Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy ran on different lines from Nazi Germany.
In UKIP I certainly see an authoritarian tendency, indeed the party is based on a cult of personality (the so-called 'one man band' accusation reveals this). Their protectionist, isolationist policies echo those of Mosley in the 1930s (who was a minister in the Labour government before forming the British Union of Fascists). Of course this is not the 1930s, neither the 1970s. In UKIP we see a populist, media friendly front for some pretty nasty and reactionary ideas which are well to the right of even the most extreme Tory positions.
It's worth looking at the history of Peronism and similar populist movements which have emerged since then. UKIP is a slightly cack-handed, amateurish very British version of something similar. Their rhetoric and some policies, as the BNP have stated publicly, are essentially lifted from the neo-fascist roster.
Posted 11 years ago # -
calmac - like them or loath them, the BNP, UKIP and Britain First are all pro-union. I can't see how it is disturbing to count their supporters amongst those likely to vote "no" in the referendum. That does not mean those doing so support the policies of these parties.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Calmac - I didn’t say they had a strong history of being trustworthy! That happened the year I left uni, and it’ll be a long while before I consider voting their way.
The comment I made still stands.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Lib Dems have stuck to their pro-euro principles.
Edin West Lib dem MP Mike crockart voted against tuition fees, which required him to step down from his post as ministerial assitant (or similar), after pressure from UoE students, among others.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I can't see how it is disturbing to count their supporters amongst those likely to vote "no" in the referendum
Certainly the vote share of BNP and Britain First is so low, there's absolutely no need to count it in with the "pro union" camp just to bolster the percentage if you're on the moderate / sane side of the fence. If this were my opinion on things I'd be very much of the "we don't want or need your stinking votes" opinion and very clear about it.
I don't think for one minute that Sarwar did actually mean to lump himself in with the far right, however it does nobody on the Better Together side of the fence any good to equate themsleves with such parties by adopting the "us vs. them" tone. This is especially true on a medium like twitter where A/ restricted characters mean comprimises are made in how you word things and B/ it's so easy for mistakes/misinterpretations to be made and get out of hand. It's almost possible to try have some reasoned debate on a slower paced medium like a forum, but Twitter is like a load of people in a busy pub all shouting at the same time and who shouts loudest or more often or the most controvertial thing is the one who gets noticed.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@ Morningsider - Sarwar could have scored Better Together parties against Yes Scotland parties - that would have been sensible. But grouping his own party and the BNP in a "pro-UK" bloc was disgusting.
@ SRD - Fair play to Mike Crockart, if only his colleagues had the same principles. As for pro-Euro principles, that's really one of the few things the Libs have left, and they've not been pressured on it. If the Tories end up the biggest party in a hung parliament again, do you really think the Libs would prevent an EU referendum?
Posted 11 years ago # -
Lib Dems have stuck to their pro-euro principles.
To be fair, they could have out UKIP'd UKIP and they'd have still got hammered, I expect they'll get roundly hammered and the next GE also.
I also think the leaders of the party deserve it. I'm still annoyed I voted for them; the signs were there after the sacked Kennedy for being a recovering adict and Ming for being too old it should have been clear they are of the Groucho Marx school.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.Maybe in a few years they'll start to regain some credibility.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Maybe in a few years they'll start to regain some credibility.
Interestingly, when I looked over the vote change maps on the BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27576104), it became clear that Scotland was the area where;
- Labour and UKIP rise in share of the vote was the "least best" i.e. it rose, but at the lowest rate
- Tory and Lib Dem drop in vote was the "least worst" i.e. it was down but at the lowest rate. Infact Tories were marginally up.So things in Scotland are definitely doing different things to rest of UK. For Scotland to be the only area where the Tory vote wasn't down certainly raised a little eyebrow for me.
- For Green, Scotland was the only other area besides SW England where the vote share went up (although total vote was up in other areas, as a share it was down).
Posted 11 years ago # -
I don't see the organisational model for the party or the state apparatus as being as important as the ideological view
Currently having a cracking time reading Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon... Superlative work.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"For Scotland to be the only area where the Tory vote wasn't down certainly raised a little eyebrow for me."
Well as I have said on here before, I think the Tories would do reasonably well in an independent Scotland. There are definitely people who want to support a moderate right of centre party. (Unless everyone thinks the same, there is always going to be a centre to be right of! Unless of course the 'traditional' left/right breaks down - elements of UKIP call themselves libertarian, which can mean just about anything you want (or don't)!)
Arguably the Tories in Scotland are more different from the Westminster version than the North and South Labour factions are from each other.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@chdot I've often imagined that the Tory vote in Scotland is somewhat held back by their links to the "main" party and if perhaps they were a little bit more standalone and had their own policies for Scotland's benefit they might do better. Hey, perhaps they even do, they're just not getting that across. I agree there's probably a reasonable whack of moderate centre right voters still out there looking for a party that fits (New Labour?).
They seem to do strongest in the Borders, D&G and parts of West Ayrshire, I think that's the farming connection? There's certainly people who see themselves as Borders first, British second - much like the Yorkshire first, English second thing. Scotland and Scottishness and how people identify themselves must certainly be a complex thing.
Posted 11 years ago # -
They seem to do strongest in the Borders, D&G and parts of West Ayrshire, I think that's the farming connection?
Almost certainly. The Lib Dems to well in the Highlands and Northern Isles for the same reasons.
Posted 11 years ago # -
One of the reasons I'm keen on independence is to get a socially and fiscally conservative voice into Scottish politics to the degree it deserves - currently around 20% maybe? Maybe even more with the conservative wing of the SNP, but certainly not forming the government as now.
The 'Conservative and Unionist' brand is so smeared with the blood of the Thatcher years and stained with City money that no one will currently listen to them. A truly Scottish conservative party might have interesting things to say.
Posted 11 years ago # -
We'll find out if they have interesting things to say when they launch their proposals from the Strathclyde commission.
Posted 11 years ago # -
If you remember, a few years ago the Scottish Tory party had a leadership election, and the main issue of the contest proved to be whether or not the Scottish party should try to revive itself by becoming independent from the UK Conservatives, so it could develop and promote its own policies. Kind of a CDU/CSU situation, or a return to the separate Scottish party before the merger in the 1960s. However, conservative (ahem) opinion won the day and they elected Ruth Davidson instead.
Posted 11 years ago #
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