Ukip's victory in the Clacton by-election has made it clear, if it wasn't before, that our membership of the EU and immigration are going to be key issues in the run up to next year's General Election. This may well be a good thing. Many commentators have bemoaned the fact that Nigel Farage and his party have so far had a rather easy ride from the media, being portrayed more as a particularly amusing British eccentricity, rather than a serious political party capable of governing the country. Consequently, they don't seem to have been subject to the same critical scrutiny as other parties. Post Clacton, I have noticed more articles appearing that set out the positive case for EU membership and immigration. Perhaps I just haven't been paying attention, or maybe now more people really do see Ukip as a threat and want to do what they can to stop them in their tracks. If there is a new-found willingness to take on Ukip, I hope this extends to an enquiry into what their stance is on issues other than Europe and foreigners speaking foreign languages on trains, rather like my family and I did on a recent trip to Barcelona, at least that is how the other Spanish travellers would have seen it. What is there view on Austerity, dealing with the Budget Deficit and the NHS funding black hole, for example? The Deficit is running at around £100bn a year and growing and the NHS is facing a funding shortfall of around £30bn by 2021, according to figures released this week. By contrast the UK's net contribution to the EU budget is about £6bn a year. It's not clear how withdrawal from Europe and stopping immigration will deal with these rather pressing matters, particularly as immigrant workers seem to be keeping the NHS going. Yet Ukip spokespeople don't get asked these questions in interviews. If Ukip think they are a serious political party capable of running the country, rather than just another special interest pressure group, it would be nice if the media started treating them as such.
But it would appear that Ukip's anti-immigration message is gaining traction everywhere. Except, that is, in the area that has arguably experienced the most immigration of any place in the UK. Who can forget the rather sulky, petulant reaction of former Tory councillor Suzanne Evans who defected to Ukip and then lost her seat in the recent local government elections. Whilst polling around 25% in the local elections nationally, Ukip only managed 7% in London. She put her new party's lack of success down to London's 'cultural elite', who were young and 'more media savvy and educated' than the rest of the country and therefore couldn't understand the heartache felt by the rest of the country.
I think many of us Londoners found this explanation rather bemusing. Anyone who has lived in London for any length of time will know that there is more to this world city than The City of London, the Westminster Village and the West End. Lewisham is just as much a part of London as Mayfair, and you don't have to go far from the richer parts to see that London is still very much a working class town. I doubt very much if anyone considering the whereabouts of the capital's metropolitan elite would begin their search in Catford, New Cross or Deptford. A far more plausible explanation for London's rejection of Ukip is the fact that London is a multiracial town at peace with itself and the fact that it has been so for a long time, especially in its poorer areas. The schools I went to in Lewisham in the 1970s and into the early 1980s were ethnically mixed. They had a large number of West Indian pupils, mainly Jamaican, with a sprinkling of Asians and Cypriots. The Nigerians starting arriving towards the end of my school days. Later generations of Lewisham school children could talk about the arrival of the Vietnamese, the Somalis and others from the world's trouble spots. My children have grown up during the time of the arrival of the Eastern Europeans.
Generations of white Londoners have grown up living amongst and going to school with other Londoners who were different to them, yet who were in many ways exactly the same. They have eaten with them, drunk with them, played football with them, chatted up their sisters and fancied their brothers. They have taken the mick out of them and been the butt of their jokes. For many ordinary Londoners, a negative attitude towards immigration would be a denial of their own history and experience. Now I am not suggesting that ordinary Londoners are living their lives trapped in some kind of perpetual performance of that song and dance number, 'We're all on this together', from High School Musical. Rather, I think that their everyday mundane experience of life has left them inured to the notion that immigrants, and by implication the EU, are the nation's bogeymen and to the idea that we would be a lot better off if we could return to a Britain that racially looked like it did in the 1950s.
PS Can I be the only person who thinks of Toad of Toad Hall when he sees Nigel Farage?
