Muffin Ponders: What To Do About Nigel?

Pressure: The effect of this tidal change in British politics is that without some sort of accommodation with Ukip, the Conservatives haven't got a prayer of winning the next General Election

By Simon Heffer

With characteristic obstinacy, David Cameron refused over the past few years to react to the defection of thousands of natural Tories to Ukip.

He wouldn’t change his wrong-headed, irrelevant and in some cases poisonous policies that drove them away. So what happened in Thursday’s elections was not so much a defeat as a self-inflicted wound.

The effect of this tidal change in British politics is that without some sort of accommodation with Ukip, the Conservatives haven’t got a prayer of winning the next General Election.

But there will be no accommodation while Mr Cameron — whose disastrous, Left-leaning brand of leadership I have criticised since he stood for leader of his party in 2005 — remains in charge.

In any case, why should Ukip leader Nigel Farage strike a deal? Both in private and public, Ukip has offered many olive branches to the Tories, for example asking for the public to be offered a swift in-out EU referendum.

Yet it has been snubbed by an arrogant, out-of-touch leadership that believed the policies popular with the so-called ‘Notting Hill Set’ would resonate with the rest of the country.

They were wrong, and Thursday’s disastrous results prove it.

Ukip advocates ideas that were once championed by the mainstream Tory party before it alienated itself from its traditional voters so spectacularly, such as lower taxes and the creation of more grammar schools

The Tories’ hapless chairman, Grant Shapps, tries to be humble in saying: ‘We get the message. We heard you.’

But they don’t, and they haven’t.

Tory ministers think the message is about tougher immigration controls and faster economic growth.

But that is only part of it.

The truth is that the Farage Factor consists of a lot more. Of course, these include an immediate EU referendum — not one in 2017 or 2018. The Tories still don’t offer that.

And Ukip advocates other ideas that were once championed by the mainstream Tory party before it alienated itself from its traditional voters so spectacularly.

It wants lower taxes, the creation of more grammar schools, withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, freedom from the tyranny of the EU and the bolstering of Britain’s depleted Armed Forces.

Any rapprochement between a party with such priorities and one obsessed with legalising marriage between same sex couples and spending billions on overseas aid is impossible to imagine.

Mr Farage is a Technicolor man in a monochrome political class. To the chattering classes, his brash, confident, matey, plain-spoken persona makes him something of a demon. But to millions of voters he’s someone with whom they can identify, and who avoids the nuanced language of almost all other politicians.

When attacked for having few detailed policies, Mr Farage points out that other opposition parties lack them, too. When stuffy pundits sneer at his saloon-bar-and-fags image, he chuckles with the confidence of a man who knows that he, and not they, is in tune with the British people.

Tories must decide whether to let Ukip continue its inexorable progress under the charismatic and popular Mr Farage, or whether they will fight to regain the support of disaffected natural Tories

There is wishful thinking among some Tory strategists, who feel Ukip will evaporate like the SDP (which was formed as a breakaway party in 1981 by those in Labour fed up with the party’s domination by the hard-Left). I am afraid they are utterly wrong.

Mr Farage argues that the SDP ultimately resulted in Tony Blair leading the Labour Party. But I believe it disappeared because it was almost a carbon copy of the Liberal Party, with which it merged.

Subsequently, the Liberal Democrats failed to challenge either Labour or the Tories because Mr Blair turned Labour into an imitation of the Lib Dems — but with a machine capable of delivering a party of government.

The only way in which Ukip will be neutralised is for the Tories to follow a similar path.

In any case, Ukip cannot be compared with the SDP. There has been nothing quite like it since Margaret Thatcher was ditched as Tory leader.

There will be one certain result of its success on Thursday. The party will attract more supporters and more money. This will allow stricter vetting of candidates, and better policy research. By next year’s Euro elections, Ukip should be well positioned to win more seats than any other party.

For their part, the Tories must decide whether to let Ukip continue its inexorable progress under the charismatic and popular Mr Farage, or whether they will fight to regain the support of disaffected natural Tories.

In sum, the Conservatives must wake up to reality.

Their core vote has defected to Ukip and their current leadership doesn’t seem to have a clue how to win it back.

Yes, that might mean getting a new leader, and it would almost certainly involve breaking the Coalition.

SoRo:  Britain's Tea Party moment has arrived and it has stunned the Establishment.  What Mr Heffer didn't address in his article is that Ukip isn't just pulling in Conservatives, it is also attracting disaffected and neglected Labour voters, who have had it with immigration, EUSSR tyranny, ridiculous political correctness, high taxation and regulations, etc., - in other words, Reagan Democrats, if you will.  Also, Thursday's election saw the complete collapse of the LibDems.  Nick Clegg:  One-Hit Wonder.

Now, ROCK ON, Nigel!