CovOps
Location : Ether-Sphere Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator Humor : Über Serious
| Subject: The rise of the right-wing: UK Independence Party campaigning to win first seat at Westminster Mon Oct 06, 2014 12:52 am | |
| A small seaside town on the English coast is in the centre of a political battle that could this week see the populist UK Independence Party (UKIP) win its first seat at Westminster.
The residents of Clacton-on-Sea in Essex will vote in a by-election triggered by Conservative MP Douglas Carswell's defection to UKIP. Mr Carswell is one of two Tory MPs to jump ship - meaning British prime minister David Cameron can no longer write UKIP off as a party full of "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists". Clacton has a higher than average rate of unemployment and a high number of pensioners, and Tim Bale, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University London, says that makes it a "particular type of constituency where you'd expect UKIP to do well". "It's not the land that time forgot", said Professor Bale, but "it's got a lot of what I sometimes refer to as left-behind voters, voters for whom globalisation has not necessarily been good news". UKIP campaigns for tight curbs on immigration, but Mr Carswell rejects the suggestion that the party is anti-immigrant. "We are not anti-immigrant", he said, "we are against uncontrolled immigration."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-06/the-rise-of-right-wing-parties-in-the-uk/5791812 |
|