It can be no surprise to learn that I do not like UKIP. It may come as a greater surprise that I agree with former Tory MP, Matthew Parris, writing in The Times last week about the local elections:
“A party of the hard right, whose only coherent message is that things ain’t what they used to be and it’s all the fault of foreigners, scored some notable gains in particular places.”
The fact that the hard right who also inhabit the same space in the Tory party are now squeaking about electoral pacts and joint candidatures, merely reminds us of the latent xenophobia that lies beneath the surface of much that passes for political debate in this country
The UKIP hard core are provocative, unreconstructed ideologues, one trick ponies. For what other purpose was Farage’s forage into left leaning Scotland other than a provocation?
Yet we have to acknowledge that not all UKIP members and supporters are “swivel eyed clones” of Nigel. The late Jim MacArthur, who was the human face of UKIP in Northamptonshire, was a thoroughly decent human being and some of their candidates were sincere, if misguided.
Many of those who voted for them were not hardened race warriors or anti-European zealots from a different era.
Many of them were folk fed up with the professionalisation of politics and frustrated by the apparent insouciance by which politicians appear bereft of principles, let alone politics.
As if on cue to remind people of the shallowness of party politics comes the case of Councillor Ifty Choudary, the Northampton Borough Councillor who changed party and became the centre of ‘Guildhalldoor-gate’ last week.
People changing parties is not a surprise. It happens.
But the case of Councillor Choudary is an instructive one. On May 2 he stood for the Labour Party in Talavera Ward. He was already a sitting Borough Councillor in Abington ward but wanted to complete his portfolio of council seats and become a ‘double-header’.
For weeks he denounced the Tory administration on the county, filled letter boxes with highly-charged critiques of the Tory villains, then, within 14 days, he turns a political summersault and joins them.
When I was a foaming- mouthed teenager I was a Young Communist, as I got older I drifted in a right-ward direction and ended up a foaming-mouthed socialist in the Labour Party.
Now I’m a foaming-mouthed pensioner looking at the growth of the Left Unity group with a degree of hope.
So is it possible to make a 360 degree change in a matter of days? Is it a result of intense political analysis or is it a huge burst of ego and opportunism?Is it possible Mr Choudary has been offered a glittering prize in time to come, the mayoralty,the Chairmanship of the Internal Security Committee or even a chance to have tea with Brian Binley?
Only Choudary can explain his actions, but it should not be possible for anyone to flip with such apparent ease and demonstrate such contempt for the electorate.
Mr Choudary was not elected because he’s a nice guy or a much loved figure in Abington.
He was elected with a Labour label, one that he was proud to wear only a few days ago.
It’s not just his integrity that is at stake,it’s the credibility of everyone who stands for a party but not a principle.