Larsson läser
Janerik Larsson
Janerik Larsson
Ja inte vet jag.
Men idag presenterar brittiska YouGovs chef Peter Kellner en intressant analys av brittiska UKIPs väljare.
Jag gissar det finns betydande likheter mellan SD och UKIP. Partierna har olika historia och kan på partiplanet inte jämföras med varandra. Men väljarna…
Most Ukip voters want to emigrate. Their problem is how to get there. Their nation of choice does not receive British Airways flights. It cannot be found on any map. Even Nigel Farage cannot really help them.
The place where Ukip voters want to live is that other country, the past. By four-to-one, they would prefer to turn the clock back 20-30 years rather than continue to live in Britain as it is today. No other party’s supporters think that.
This finding, from a special YouGov survey for The Times, helps to explain why Mr Farage’s opponents find it so hard to fight him. They try to neutralise his appeal on Europe and immigration by offering policies for a better tomorrow – when, at heart, what Ukip’s voters want is a programme for a better yesterday. Like Peter Finch’s character, Howard Beale, in the 1976 film, The Network, they are as mad as hell and don’t want to take it any more.
At the root of this anger is a profound pessimism about Britain’s future. Only 19 per cent of Ukip voters are optimistic about “the prospects for British people over the next two or three years”. In contrast, 61 per cent of Conservatives are optimistic. It may have been true once that Ukip voters were like Tories, only a bit more hostile to Europe and immigrants. No longer. The difference between the two groups is now profound.
The clearest expression of this is, of course, immigration. Fully 90 per cent of Ukip voters say it has had a negative impact on Britain, while a clear majority, 58 per cent, say it has been bad for their own family’s daily life. Most Tory loyalists are also troubled by immigration’s national impact, but only 28 per cent say their own family is suffering on a daily basis.
To find out what is going on, we asked those Ukip supporters who told us their own families’ daily lives were blighted by immigration – 149 of respondents in a total poll of 2,020 people – to describe its impact in their own Words.
Some gave us specific examples: “When I visit my family in Birmingham I get scowled at by Asian Muslims on the train.” “Terrible life due to immigrant neighbours who have stolen from us. They have loud parties every day with 15 occupants living in a two-bedroom flat.” “My grand-daughters are having difficulty getting into nearby, overcrowded schools full of kids not born in the UK and for whom English is not their first language.”
The striking thing, however, is that these personal stories are in a small minority. The vast majority of responses suggest that hostility to immigration is driven by a general climate of fear and suspicion more than by specific experiences. Four themes recur time and again:
Such a climate of fear is hard to counter.
Hans råd till de andra partierna:
The wrong way to fight Ukip is to accept its agenda and fight on its ground. Its core ten per cent is probably lost to the traditional parties, at least until living standards improve significantly. Ukip’s rivals should concentrate on the other 90 per cent – the people for whom immigration is often a worry to be sure, but not the be-all and end-all of their political outlook. The more the traditional parties say, in effect, “Ukip is right to bang on about immigration, don’t vote for it”, the worse they will do. For the moment, too many politicians who should know better are simply fighting the wrong battle.