THERE has been a lot of hyperbole spoken in the last few days about seismic shifts in the political landscape. Rightly so. The first elected MP of any party is a big deal – Richard Taylor in Wyre Forest, George Galloway for Respect, Caroline Lucas for the Green Party are all representatives of political parties not seen in parliament before.
It is the same for Ukip, 20 years after it started as a party campaigning for our exit from the EU. Douglas Carswell campaigned on his track record as a constituency MP to get re-elected with a significant majority.
But the really stunning result was the by-election in Manchester where Ukip came second to Labour by just 600 votes.
Many of these results, and previous ones, have been written off as a blip. But a series of blips makes a trend and there is no doubt this reflects unease with the existing system. The trouble is, as the Liberal Democrats have seen, a party that professes to change politics eventually succeeds — and at that View from Westminster point, a so-called protest party becomes the establishment and their fortunes reverse.
The Liberal Democrats had over 20 per cent support at the last general election and were seen as the antidote to politics. They got into government and now they have around six to eight per cent support, a victim of their own success.
I have no doubt the democratic deficit in Europe is, in part, to blame. This surge of alternative parties is not peculiar to the UK.
The reality is that running a country is immensely complex, not least because of the interplay between policies and departments.
What is definitely new about politics is coalition government. The Liberal Democrats conference was remarkable as they laid out how they would stop any coalition partner from doing what they wanted.
What is fascinating is that a party with just seven per cent of popular support is probably the only one that can be confident of being part of the next government. And they want to be the wreckers of policy that parties with more support want to introduce. No wonder people are fed up with politics.
CONTACT YOUR MP
- Email: mark.garnier.mp@parliament.uk
- Telephone: 020 7219 7198 or 01562 746771
- Write: 9a Lower Mill Street, Kidderminster, DY11 6UU, or House of Commons, Westminster, London
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