The problem with UKIP rehtoric

I have read this quite a lot in the past few weeks – especially since the huge show of support in Eastleigh. It is becoming a more and more common statement from UKIP supporters, and is being used to promote the idea that national support for their party is growing, and it isn’t just made up of a "few right wing nut jobs". 

The statement comes in various forms, but the basic idea of it is this :-

The vast majority of the British Public support the vast majority of our policies

Sometimes it includes percentages (75%, 95% etc), but generally it is (if you will excuse the phrase) left as a generalisation.  And sometimes it includes the caveat "when our policies are explained properly" (which I will get to in a moment). 

On the face of it, that looks like UKIP has a lot of support. If most of the British public support most of the policies, you would think UKIP would sweep to victory in every election, never having any major opposition. 

The trouble is that this phrase can apply to nearly every political party imaginable, for two main reasons :-

Because of the way politics has gone in recent times, most political parties are now more obsessed with pandering to more voters, instead of actually standing for something, and so the policies are expressly designed not to annoy anyone – or at least, not to annoy more people than they please. 

Consequently, the vast majority (if you will pardon the phrase) of parties will have similar policies in most respects. 

That way, they can’t be painted as "being for something" that is considered bad, and – more importantly – they can’t be painted as "being against something" that is considered good. Because nothing makes a statement more bold than saying "A VOTE FOR xxxxxx IS A VOTE AGAINST BABIES" or "A VOTE FOR xxxxx IS A VOTE AGAINST CURING THE COMMON COLD" 

Secondly – the vast majority of polices deal with normal day to day stuff. Murder – bad. Living – good. Terrorism – bad. Freedom – good. Punching monkeys – bad. Punching bad guys – good. 

As a result, it will be very hard to find someone who is willing to come out and say "murder good, terrorism good, punching monkeys good" and "living bad, freedom bad, punching bad guys bad"

So – as I said – on the face of it – the  statement is probably true. And I suspect that even I, a dyed-in-the-wool freedom loving hippie-dippie liberal would probably support a few of UKIP’s policies, despite the fact I find the party as a whole quite objectionable. 

But when you examine it a bit more, you start to realise why that statement is actually just propaganda. 

(Again – this will apply to most, if not all, political parties, and I am just using UKIP as an example because – as I said – the statement has been used more and more in recent times to give them the appearance of having a lot of support nationwide).

Like I said – I am definitely on the left-wing of politics. I believe that person freedom is more important than collective freedom, and personal rights are more important than collective rights. And I believe that everyone should be treated equally regardless of who they are, and that only their actions should possibly lead to a limitation of those rights. And I think that religion has no place in law making.

And while I don’t believe that any abridgement in freedom is a good idea, I can accept that temporary suspension of these freedoms are sometimes necessary, but only if they are applied to everyone the same way and by everyone in the same way. 

In addition, while I am (for want of a better phrase) flexible on some things, there are some things I believe in very strongly, and am not willing to waiver on them. 

And I suspect most people are like that – there are things they can go either way on (fox-hunting, privatising the Post Office, national voting age) there are other things that they believe very strongly on (gay rights, immigration, 42 days detention, telling the truth). And it is generally those things – the ones they believe most strongly on – that will determine what party they voice support for and what party they will vote for. 

So – to use me as an example again – while I might agree with some of UKIP’s policies on the things I don’t really care about that much, their policies on the things I do care about a lot are pretty much in direct opposition to what I believe and would want the law to be. 

They oppose gay marriage because (as I have said in a previous entry) they are a bunch of homophobic bigots. They oppose immigration because they claim it is bad for the country, when in truth I suspect they are just a bunch of xenophobic bigots. (And – by the by – the idea of a UKIP member being an MEP Is pretty much the same as a black man running for the position of Grand Imperial Wizard. But that’s just my opinion). 

(On a slightly related note – the fact that Southerners were stripped of their vote if they refused to say whether they had taken up arms against The Union Army was a fairly appalling thing to do, and the fact the KKK wanted to get that reversed was somewhat admirable. But before you take that to mean I support the KKK in anything else they did, or that I am voicing support for them as a whole organisation – please don’t. They were a truly horrendous bunch of people who hopefully will all rot in hell for the rest of eternity. But as an illustration of my main point, it is quite interesting, don’t you think?)

They support the death penalty, they want to end the smoking ban, they oppose Leveson.

Despite a fairly long web-search, and setting aside the Geoffrey Clarke’s idiotic rant, it is very hard to find out what UKIP’s policy on abortion actually is, but given they are pro-Death Penalty and anti-gay marriage, I would say they are probably not big fans. (Some sites say pro-life, some say pro-choice, some don’t mention it and one said that abortion was invented by the EU and so must be the work of Satan, but I’d suggest you ignore that one because I am not sure it is entirely serious). 

So – since I oppose them on gay marriage, on immigration, on the death penalty, on the smoking ban, on Leveson and probably on abortion, the fact that I might agree with a few of their policies is pretty much irrelevant. I am never going to vote for them because I find their stance on most of the issues I think are important to be utterly abhorrent, abominable and bigoted. 

And yet I might well fall in to the "vast majority of the British public" who support "a vast majority of their policies", meaning that I could be considered a supporter. 

Which is the major problem with their rhetoric and why I’d say it is more like propaganda than the actual truth.