Tuesday 29 April 2014

Newark – Farage’s great gamble?

Will he or won’t he? Will Nigel Farage stand and win the safe Conservative seat of Newark, give David Cameron a massive headache and rock British politics.

Or will he stand, lose and next year we will go back to talk about Labour, Conservative and the Liberal Democrats.
That’s the dilemma facing the UKIP leader tonight, stand and win and he grabs a paintbrush and to paint a new political picture from the UK.

Lose and we might all go, ‘well they aren’t up to much are they?’ – a huge bodyblow less than 12 months from the General Election.
Or to borrow from Blair, is there a third way? Could the party have Diane James line up for the seat, fresh from a very good performance in Eastleigh?

She is an incredibly articulate woman, a plain speaker and, unlike some, does not have any faux pas to hush up.
Farage could then take to the airwaves, explain he wants to focus on UKIP’s Euro election campaign and doesn’t want to be ‘part-time candidate’ and ‘the people of Newark deserve more’.

Unlike Eastleigh, Newark is safe Tory country giving UKIP a clear run at the Conservative vote, Farage can take the temperature of things are going because if she loses, well it was a 16,000 seat majority….

If she wins, Cameron gets a bloody nose and, allied to predicted poor Euro results, the Prime Minister could find himself distracted in the weeks ahead.
And wouldn’t Farage fancy a seat in the Home Counties anyway and the glory of beating the Conservatives on General Election night itself?

2 comments:

  1. I think your reading of the situation is pretty much on the ball. I feel that the electorate see the Euro elections very differently to parliamentary ones. Most of us can't name our Euro MP, so there will be more Tory & Labour voters switching to UKIP, based on the EEC issue. Most people want out. UKIP's other policies will stop them succeeding in Westminster elections. The 2 main parties need to address out distrust of Europe either my educating us to realise we are wrong on the issue, or my taking our views on board and representing us.

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  2. I broadly agree with you but feel you may under estimate the potential of UKIP at Westminster. Farage is moulding a party which resembles a 80s Conservative Party and is very attractive to many traditional Tory voters of a certain age who simply just don't recognise the modern Conservative Party.

    Prime Minister Cameron talks of gay marriage, of building on the green belt, of grand projects like HS2 and of free schools. Policies which are alien to Tory voters who are traditionalists, the party of England's green and pleasant land and grammar schools.

    In trying to modernise, Cameron has drifted away from the core and Farage has jumped in, don't believe the media hype, UKIP will take many more votes from the Conservatives than it will from Labour. Labour voters, while receptive to the policies still see a posh, private school educated former banker in a suit!

    For what it's worth, no party has the right position on Europe, Britain does not need a referendum at the moment when our economy remains in the toilet and we are still borrowing money at an alarming rate.

    The UK has more power than it thinks, the EU secretly respects the fact we stayed out of the doomed Euro and knows should we walk the whole enterprise will shatter.

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