UK: The future of the Protest Vote

In a parliamentary election last Thursday in the seat of Barnsley, a former coal mining area in Northern England, the Labour Party candidate, as expected, was returned handsomely. There were two big surprises, however: the UK Independence Party (which campaigns for Britain to leave the EU and which, I had better declare, I helped found) beat the ruling Conservative party candidate into second place; and the Liberal Democrat Party, junior members of the ruling coalition, were beaten into sixth, behind an independent former miner and the far right anti-immigrant British National Party.

Naturally many people are asking whether this is the end for the Liberal Democrats and whilst we shouldn’t draw too many conclusions from one result, I think there are points of interest here.

Just twenty or twenty-five years ago there were effectively three parties: you voted Labour or Conservative and if you wanted to register a protest vote you voted Liberal. There were of course others on the ballot paper- the excellent David Sutch of the Monster Raving Loony Party, for example – but they were cranks. The Liberals were slightly cranky but they had party conferences and party political broadcasts on the television so were a sort of institutionalised protest.

In the 1980s and early 1990s three new national parties emerged: UKIP, the Green Party and the British National Party. They stayed way behind the Liberals (now the Liberal Democrats) but changes to the political broadcast rules meant the smaller parties got more airtime, so the electoral position outside the top two was LibDems (institutional protest), UKIP / Green / BNP (semi-institutional), others. But note that whilst the semi-institutional three had defined core beliefs, the LibDems, to maintain themselves alone in the second division, did not (or at least the notion of 'Liberalism' was sufficiently hazy to adapt to changing circumstances). So only a percentage of LibDem voters voted that way because of what was in their manifesto. It is thought that their core vote is only around 5% of the electorate whereas UKIP, for example has a (total) vote of around 7%.

Now with the LibDems joining the government, their share of the ‘none of the above’ vote may be lost in whole or in part. Of course the core beliefs of the others may hold them back from capturing all these protests: you might be in favour of the EU, anti-environmentalism and pro immigration, but few, I think, share that exotic eclecticism - there is something for everyone.

The LibDem position would seem to be this: if, as we near the next election, the Coalition is seen to have failed, they will reap in full measure what they have sowed. They might well split up into single issue parties, pro-EU for example. If, by contrast, the Coalition is a success, there is the serious risk that Mr Cameron will allow himself to be talked into governing alone (most of his backbenchers don’t like the coalition). In this case the LibDems will find it hard to return to being the principal recipient of the protest vote. They will have been tainted.

Mr Clegg’s best hope is that Mr Cameron still needs him in five years’ time.

Nick Clegg

'Nick Clegg says it's up to athletes about Delhi' ran the headline. The Delhi Commonwealth games look a complete shambles but the big news is that finally a British politician, asked to put his nose in where it really wasn't wanted, declined.

Congratulations, Mr.Clegg.

100 days

The coalition government of David Cameron and Nick Clegg seems to be scoring fairly well with the newspapers at the 100 days mark.


For me I am not so sure. Firstly, of course, I don’t think we should have had it in the first place. Cameron should have run a minority government and called another election when continuation became impracticable, which would have been less soon than you might think, given the fact that the Liberals were not popular and the Labour Party had no money for another campaign. As it is, the policies were decided after we had voted, so if, like me, you reluctantly supported the Conservatives on the grounds that they were pledged to repatriate powers from Brussels and that they would have nothing to do with changing the voting system, you have been cheated.

I don’t like 100 days as a point for the analysis, either. It is not enough time to analyse policies, much less the effect of those policies. All you can do at the 100 day mark his analyse the direction of travel, as it is called these days.

One must give Cameron and Clegg full marks for activity. This, I think, is generated by Cameron, who, in the closing stages of the election, brought out a policy a week (sometimes it seemed like a policy every fifteen minutes). The result is movement on a wide range of fronts, in the Home Office, local government, schools and higher education, and the hint of changes at defence and foreign policy. Much of this has been good, some tepid.

One disappointing aspect seems to be Cameron’s lack of backbone. He must be bright enough to see the sheer idiocy of the state providing milk in schools and of providing bus passes to the well off. He has simply avoided short term unpopularity using our money.

The deficit is of course the main preoccupation of the government and, after some good publicity work, of the country. Here we must regretfully report that even the plans – and we don’t know how much spineless backing down Cameron is going to do when the whingeing starts – even the plans do not provide for the elimination of the deficit in the proposed five year term: not one penny of the bloated national debt will be paid off, indeed it will increase.

So, for me, 5 or 6 out of ten. The question people will now ask is how long this administration can survive. Not being used to coalitions in Britain we may have forgotten that the seeds of destruction are sown internally. The arguments are blue on blue (and yellow on yellow): it has been remarked that if a Conservative minister makes a blunder he is slapped down publically, whereas if a LibDem made the same blunder there would be policy meetings to resolve the issue. The backbench Tories are concerned, as am I, about the lack of movement on Europe, the wishy washy support for the armed forces, the lack of muscle on the deficit and proposed referendum on AV. The LibDems are mumbling that they didn’t come into politics to see benefits cut.

In truth, British political parties are themselves coalitions, broad churches where the right can combine uneasily with the left, the eurosceptic with the europhile. If coalition is to become entrenched in our national life there is no reason why the Tories and LibDems shouldn’t split into at least two parties each. I am not convinced this would necessarily be a good thing either for the parties or for our democracy.

So how long will it last? I am less pessimistic than some. I believe there will be difficulties at the Comprehensive Spending Review in September but they will stumble through. I think, though, that after four years if the Tories are further ahead, and I believe they will be, or the LibDems suffering in the polls, it will be time for the amicable separation. I for one hope that this particular couple never gets back together again.

Rare Genius

Sometimes I am confused as to whether politicians just think we’re idiots, or whether we in fact are, or whether they are idiots for not realising they are.


Nick Clegg, who only a month ago was a Person of No Consequence* has launched a website patronisingly asking the public to suggest to the government which laws they would like repealed.

One useful suggestion for repeal has been the First Law of Thermodynamics, without which we could have perpetual motion machines and the energy crisis would be solved.

Great work, Nick

*defined as ‘like an Italian pedestrian’.

That Clegg campaign song in full

Man of the moment