Nigel Farage: a pustule of resentment on the body politic Politicans talk about ordinary people, but never to them. Into this vacuum steps the likes of Ukip. The left must take note

Pub wisdom ventriloquist … Nigel Farage at the start of Ukip's European election campaign Photograph: Peter Byrne

"Parts of the left have always mystified me, as they seek to represent those they so obviously despise."

Suzanne Moore

Nigel Farage: a pustule of resentment on the body politic

Politicans talk about ordinary people, but never to them. Into this vacuum steps the likes of Ukip. The left must take note

Suzanne Moore

The Guardian, Wednesday 23 April 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/23/nigel-farage-ukip-pustule-resentment-body-politic

There is forever an England where Ukip is nothing more than a joke on Twitter, the Daily Mail is something that no one you know actually reads, where Christianity is a misguided thought process, where everyone understands that taxation is absolutely the right price to pay for the things we value. Maybe you live in that England. Lucky you. I visit it, of course, but I don't come from it. My family were that not-so-rare breed, working-class Tories. Turkeys not only vote for Christmas, I soon realised, they enthusiastically talk about the various ways in which they will be stuffed, every day of the week.

So I was very young when I understood that simply telling people that they are stupid and wrong does not make them suddenly embrace socialism. Nor is everything easily divisible into right and left. Right now it is "ordinary people" versus the "trendy metropolitan elite" (people who live in London and enjoy a wide range of dining opportunities).

The reality is, of course, not so simple. While everyone claims to speak for "ordinary people", many of our institutions do not speak to them. The right is honest about its condescension – we are governed by those born to rule – but the certainties of a leftwing mindset can be equally patronising. How often do I hear the opinion that if someone votes for a different party, or reads a different newspaper or doesn't like a particular comedian, then they are basically a terrible person? Actually, quite a lot.

Parts of the left have always mystified me, as they seek to represent those they so obviously despise. It is not spelled out, it's implicit. Thus we have to import a spadtastic American such as David Axelrod for Labour to explain itself to "ordinary people". Something has gone wrong here.

It is this gap between Little England and Big England that Nigel Farage exploits so well. He and his ever-changing cast of semi-barking compadres are not simply a joke. Labour has been complacent in thinking Ukip could simply split the Tory vote – it also appeals to Labour punters. Once you get to Kent or East Anglia, Farage is not so funny. He can present himself as a rebel with a cause because people feel very insecure, economically and emotionally. Change has come too fast and furious for many. To voice this is not inherently racist and yet for every problem to be blamed on Europe and immigration is ridiculously simplistic.

What Farage taps into is this sense of people not feeling in control of their own lives, of rules being made elsewhere, of things not being fair. He even rebuts the logic of the market, ignoring the fact that Europe is our biggest trading partner.

All these sentiments should be the natural territory of the left, not the right. In simple terms, ordinary people feel they have no power; in jargon, a neo-liberal agenda is concentrating wealth at the very top and all the main parties are signed up to this, as though this agenda is natural, not a man-made force. All across Europe, such alienation combined with nationalism fuels the right. It is dangerous.

If the left is to be meaningful it has to speak both to and about this alienation. But politicians are loath to do so as it would mean admitting they are not in full control. Instead, figures such as Farage pop up as pustules of resentment on the body politic. His discourse is emotional, angry, unanchored, which is why Clegg's mannered reasonableness and narcoleptic intoning of facts and figures was fairly useless against it.

The difference between the language of a managerial political class and the way that many people speak is huge. Half-hearted visions need to be translated into robotic nonsense such as the "squeezed middle". Phrases have to be invented, as there are not enough words to convey the passions of Cameron or Miliband.

Where there cannot even be a common language, there is no way of expressing common interests. We are linguistically divided.

This is about more than great oratory, it is about a kind of fear. The unmediated voices of ordinary people are a worry for every part of the establishment, including much of the media. They say the wrong things. They are ignorant of what is important. They are over-emotional. They can only appear on Radio 4, for instance, in oddly written dramas or asking experts about pensions. They remain unheard. Even social media serves mainly to amplify the already powerful.

So it is easy for Farage to play the underdog, the ventriloquist of pub wisdom, the ordinary bloke. And it is significant that the most strident criticism of the Ukip posters has come from the military, who do not want the flag messed around with. This is potent imagery and we should not be dainty about it.

To tackle this stuff head-on we must do so in the same language of morality. What is right, wrong and fair. For it is completely out of touch to say Farage has lowered the tone of political debate. This tone was already there. One would have had to have tin ears never to have heard it. Or perhaps never stepped outside of the real Little England, the one that seeks to represent ordinary people without ever talking to them.