UKIP - the earthquake?

I would like to congratulate UKIP on its 139 Council seats won in the recent local elections. It is sensational turn-out for a Party which had previously only had a small number of councillors - if you exclude the parish/town councillors which UKIP's figures often used to mention. It is not so long ago that they were getting tiny votes despite their huge EU resources.

 But the newspapers have been reporting remarks along the lines that it is an “earthquake”, a “seismic shock”, a “body blow” or the “death knell” of the British political Establishment. 

 To establish a sense of perspective and balance on this, I think it is worth pointing out that overall there are 20,680 councillors throughout Great Britain and therefore talk of body blows, let alone of anything fatal for the British Establishment is well and truly over-blown. 

An interesting and carefully worked out  and sobering analysis on the imapct that UKIP has had has been done by Nigel Farage's former right-hand man here >>> http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83861

 If we want to use an analogy or simile, then because the media have been so vocal about it, it is clearly a blow to the face and perhaps even a black eye to the Establishment, whereas the less well reported numbers of Green Councillor candidates elected would perhaps also be a bruise, but hidden under the clothing. In neither case could it sensibly be said that the British Establishment’s skin had been broken, let alone any bones! 

Having recently shed Peter Davies, our “maverick” mayor of Doncaster, who was an ex-UKIPer, to my personal relief, given his vain and egotistical character and unwillingness to do anything at all in our manifesto, I do not envy Nigel Farage’s coming job in having to deal with perhaps 147 Peter Davies’, let alone having to deal with fire-fighting all the scandals and ructions which will now develop amongst those of UKIP’s new Councillors, who never expected to be elected and who in the nature of a previously small party, as Nigel Farage candidly admitted, had not been properly vetted.

Despite all this I congratulate UKIP and Nigel Farage, in particular for having greened up the ground on the so called populist right vacated by David Cameron’s Conservatives and his Coalition. Many of us feel very much the same regarding the EU, immigration and law and order.

The big difference between the English Democrats and UKIP is of course on the question of England, which UKIP has no interest in at all, as amply demonstrated by their failure to mention England or the English in their two recent Party Election Broadcasts.

I fully expect that as we move towards the Scottish Independence Referendum, questions relating to England and the English Nation will gather greater momentum in the way that troubles within the EU have helped UKIP’s recent progress. I look forward with relish to the English Democrats’ getting coverage then.