Alex Massie explains why flirting with UKIP could cost the Conservatives more than they think
Like most normal people I had never heard of Godfrey Bloom until recently. I don’t suppose many of his notional constituents in Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire could name their Member of the European Parliament either. The wages of political obscurity are paid in public indifference. Even now I fancy even politically-aware voters would be hard pressed to name Mr Bloom. If he is remembered at all he is surely only known as the Bongo Bongo guy. Or, most lately, the slut guy.
Ah yes, your average well-informed voter will say, is he the UKIP fellow who thinks we spend too much money on international development and aid to funny, fuzzy, types in Bongo Bongo Land? After all, everyone knows these dusky thieves will only spend our charity on Ferraris and apartments in Paris. Yes, he’s that guy.
Bloom is an ass. But a useful one. Whether or not his recent suspension is permanent, his hijacking of the UKIP conference ensured that after Nigel Farage, his is the face most prominently associated with the party. And his saloon-bar chauvinism comes with a health warning to which Conservatives should pay attention. Too many Conservatives appear to think flirting with UKIP is a cost-free enterprise from which no real harm can come. Bloom is a reminder that this is not the case. UKIP are a threat to Tory fortunes at the next election but not in the way many Conservatives seem to think. Obsessed with shoring up support on the right, too many Tories seem oblivious to the fact that bargaining with
UKIP costs the party support elsewhere.
This is, in part, because some things are more easily measured than others. It is easy to calculate how many seats UKIP might notionally “cost” the Conservatives at the next election but rather more difficult to measure the number of centre-ground votes will be lost by a closer association with UKIPism. But those votes count too and I wager they are more numerous than some Tories think.
As it is too many Conservatives appear to think of UKIP as jovial rascals who may go a little too far sometimes but whose hearts are essentially in the right place. What harm can there be in tacking to the right to reassure UKIP voters – and those tempted by UKIP – that, when all is said and done, the Tories share their concerns and are, broadly speaking, “on the same page”?
Plenty. The Conservatives already have a problem with ethnic minority voters. This is, in part, a question of path-dependency. Many Black and Asian Britons mistrust the Conservatives because of the suspicion that the Tories do not see Black and Asian Britons as full and equal members of the realm. All things being equal, these voters sense that many Tories would like there to be fewer Black or Asian Britons. And these voters continue to believe these things because they have learnt this from their parents. Many of them will continue to believe
these things even after they have ceased to be true.
But, of course, flirting with a party that tolerated Godfrey Bloom for so long sends the message that these things – these prejudices – have not ceased to be true. Cuddling up to UKIP does not just cost the Tories votes at the next election; it costs them votes at the next several elections. Most of all it probably costs them support in London where, should you need reminding, the Tories under-performed in 2010. The party won just 34% of the vote in London (as against nearly 40% in England
as a whole). It needs to do better in the capital.
Moreover, hugging UKIP tells the electorate that Tory modernisation is, in the end and at heart, a sham. It counterfeits the entire purpose of David Cameron’s leadership. And so it costs the party support from people who might, in ordinary circumstances, be happy to vote Conservative but who have no desire to be associated with a party that is in turn happy to associate itself with people such as Godfrey Bloom.
Fraternising with extremists – and most voters consider UKIP head-banging fruit cakes – sends another message too: one that says the Tories have lost their nerve, their poise and their ability to see what really matters. It reveals a party unfit for government. Allowing the UKIP tail to wag the Conservative dog is a sign of weakness that will not pass unnoticed. And nor should it. Which is why Godfrey Bloom is useful.
UKIP are toxic for the Tories and it was decent – jolly decent – of Bloom to remind everyone why that is, and always will be, the case. If Tories wish to cut their own throats with a UKIP
razor that is, I suppose, their business but they cannot say they have not been warned.
