Miliband: Ukip is capitalising on Britons' discontent
Labour leader says Nigel
Farage's party is benefiting from disillusion with political system but 'they
don't have the solutions'
Patrick Wintour, political editor
theguardian.com, Monday 19 May 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/19/ed-miliband-ukip-capitalising-britons-discontent
Ed Miliband has admitted Ukip is capitalising on deep
discontent in Britain and has said the Labour election campaign is trying to
answer that discontent with practical solutions to the issue of broken family
finances and the need for more middle-class jobs.
He said Ukip's support was a sign of scepticism about
whether politics could answer the questions the country was facing.
Miliband said: "I think there's a deep sense, a deep
question in people's minds which is: 'Can politics, can any political party
provide the answers? Should we protest by voting Ukip? Can any political party
answer the questions the country faces?' Now, I believe deeply that there is
discontent and I understand the reasons for that and we can solve these
problems. But that's part of the battle ahead and it's a battle I relish."
Asked to explain the strength of Ukip support he said:
"I can understand why people feel deep discontent with the political
system and would look for other alternatives. Ukip might be siding with the
discontent people feel but they don't have the solutions."
The interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme was marked by
a soft-spoken, calm and relatively slow speaking style that some said was the
influence of the American political strategist David Axelrod, but Labour aides
said he was not involved in advising Miliband on his appearance or style.
The Labour leader again refused to label Nigel Farage as a
racist, saying instead that the Ukip leader was right to apologise for his
remarks claiming Romanians were different from Germans and more prone to
criminality.
He said: "Our politics is disagreeable enough without
political leaders saying about other political leaders that they are a racist.
I disagree profoundly with what Nigel Farage says. I disagree with his vision
for the country, whether it is about pulling out of the EU or saying he wants to
keep the flame of Thatcherism alive … He made one remark, that was completely
wrong, completely out of order, and was a slur. Apparently he says he got it
wrong. He should certainly say he has got it wrong."
He insisted Labour was addressing the underlying issues that
Ukip was trying to capitalise on. He said: "Where the wealth of our nation
and the family finances are broken there is a deep discontent about the way in
which this country is run and I am determined to change it.
"I make no apology for saying markets need rules. That
is part of the big question for Britain in the next year. We have a government
that says the best thing a government can do is to stand out of the way and we
can carry on as we are as a country that simply serves a few people at the top.
"We have a government that says everything is fixed. I
don't believe that. When I go around this country there is deep discontent
about the way this country is run and I am determined to change it and that is
about markets needing rules, taking action on zero hours and on the minimum
wage."
He also rejected suggestions that he was sending a message
overseas that Britain was no longer an open trading nation. He said it was the
Conservatives who wanted to turn inwards and spend two years discussing whether
Britain should remain a member of its biggest single export market. He said:
"What is the biggest threat to prosperity in this country? It is the
potential of a Conservative party that turns inwards for two years [while it]
decides whether to exit the European Union."
A vote for Ukip is a vote against Europe, nothing more
Nigel Farage has made the
European elections about a point of view: do you want to be part of the EU or
not?
Simon Jenkins
theguardian.com,
Monday 19 May 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/19/vote-ukip-europe-nigel-farage-elections
The truest thing Nigel Farage has said in the countdown to
Thursday's European election is, "I was tired", when apologising for
unfortunate remarks on Romanian immigration. Farage's tiredness tells us much
about his rise to fame, not least his lonely status as leader, spokesman,
policy chief, disciplinarian, candidate selector and celebrity all-in-one. It
is a wonder the whole Ukip enterprise has not already evaporated in a whirl of
heat.
But Farage's Ukip is not a political party, nor is it just a
one-man band, though its leader's relaxed style and affability speak volumes
for modern political craftsmanship. Ukip is simply a point of view; one that
has always existed in countries with fluid societies and open economies. It is
a view widely held by people whose jobs are insecure and whose communities seem
under siege that was articulated with more racism, though less panache, by
Enoch Powell at the end of the 1960s.
What has given this view sudden electoral potency is a quite
separate disillusionment with the ever greater European union. Even decades of
immigration from the non-white Commonwealth never had the dynamism that Farage
has been able to generate over Europe's open borders. He's given latent
xenophobia the elixir of respectability in opposing the EU – exploiting the
uncritical complacency of the pro-Europe lobby.
Tarnishing Ukip as a racist party or castigating it as
extreme has proved woefully counter-productive. People who oppose European
integration do not like being branded racist. Ukip may be absurdly ramshackle;
its policies may be as chaotic as its organisation. This is not at issue. As
the vehicle for a point of view, Ukip is specific: it wants Britain "out
of Europe". A vote for Ukip on Thursday is not a vote for an MEP or a party,
let alone a government. It is the closest to a referendum on Europe that
Britain has been allowed this century, and it will be seen as such.
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