I've attended quite a few political meetings in my time. In North Devon the hustings that were traditionally held in Bideford's Panier Market on election eve could be quite robust, even boisterous, but always good hearted and never threatening.
Similarly, I've attended meetings of the Labour Party, Liberals, Liberal Democrats, CND and Green Party, all of whom I disagreed with to varying degrees. I never felt threatened or uncomfortable at any of these either.
Then I went to a UKIP fringe meeting during the 2004 party conference in Bournemouth. For the first time at a political meeting I truly felt uncomfortable. The intolerance and hatred in the room was palpable. Intolerance of anything or anyone that didn't conform to the supporters viewpoint and hatred of the change that was taking society from that comfortable norm the audience wanted to preserve.
The people there were genuinely frightened by the changes in society and their country they were witnessing. Their response was to blame the EU for this shift and to hark back to a country that simply doesn't exist any longer.
To a large degree they are right, the EU has imposed many changes on our country, some for the better, but many more for the worse. We have to reach out to those people who feel this way, reassure them that the pace of change can be altered and that while it's impossible for us to go back, the erosion they perceive of their core values can be reversed.
What makes this task all the more important is the news today that the former UKIP MEP (he was expelled by UKIP for being involved in a court case over alleged housing benefit fraud) has joined the same group in the European Parliament as the French National Front, Allessandra Mussolini's Fascists from Italy and a rag bag of far right parties from Bulgaria and Belgium amongst others. For me this confirms the feeling I had at that meeting two years ago, that it's a very short step from the legitimate concerns many UKIP supporters have to something much much nastier.
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2 comments:
Yet more BS from a Tory. Is this the norm we should now expect?
Are you sure that was a UKIP meeting, Nick? Sounds more like the old Conservative Monday Club. Socialogically, UKIP tends to be made up of a mixture of ex-Tories and Ex-LibDems, and - in my experience at least - you come across fewer bigots and weirdos in UKIP than you do in the Conservative Party. Mote's actions are unforgiveable, but at least UKIP chucked him out as soon as they realised what he was like.
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