The votes are in and counted and now come the complaints about UKIP being the biggest winners in the UK. So whats my position on this?
Well, if you didn't want UKIP to win then you should have voted. Apathy is the biggest problem with politics. Overall UK turnout was 33.8%, down slightly on last time which means that roughly 66% or 2/3rds of all people eligible to vote just didn't bother. I am reminded of the favourite quotation: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" - Edmund Burke
It is no good whingeing that you don't like the result if you couldn't be arsed to join in and cast your vote. However, if you did vote, well done, but the party you voted for hasn't managed to enthuse and motivate its supporters, so go chasing them get them voting and get us out of this mess.
For a party with just 2 policies - (1) get the UK out of Europe's farcical membership of the EEC, and (2) Curb immigration from within the EEC - this glorious result, but why did 27.5% of all those that voted put their cross against UKIP? The two main parties (Conservatives and Labour, just in case you are out of touch or unsure) spent most of their campaigning verbally lambasting UKIP. The public love an underdog, and if 2 big boys gang up on a little 'man in the street' guy then he is the one that will get their vote. UKIP didn't need to campaign, Cameron and Miliband did it for them.
Then there's the unrelenting release of statistical information from Westminster (via the Office for National Statistics or whatever they are calling themselves today) to show that government policies are working, immigration is coming down. Except, that at the end of the quarterly review all the earlier releases were a pack of lies and everything is still going to hell in a hand cart, the government cannot meet its own (too high) targets and nothing that Eric Pickles (Chief Liar on behalf of one Mr D Cameron) can say or do will change that this year or any subsequent years.
Then, as the BBC's Gavin Hewitt reports:
"The people have spoken loud and clear," a triumphant Marine Le Pen told cheering supporters at National Front (FN) party headquarters in Paris. "They no longer want to be led by those outside our borders, by EU commissioners and technocrats who are unelected. They want to be protected from globalisation and take back the reins of their destiny."
I could not have put it better myself.
And then there was the Lib Dems and Nick Clegg who got into the coalition with David Cameron on the back of his promising at the last election to oppose any increase in tuition fees, then in September 2012 he apologised, saying: "We made a pledge, we did not stick to it, and for that I am sorry." Well he will be sorry now as he and his party are no longer the 3rd party in UK politics - students don't support broken promises.
There are so many other reasons why I can think that people voted UKIP. The biggest upset in UK politics since 19010 - let us just hope something good comes of last week's voting.
