Forget the Tories - it's Labour Defectors We Need

Just when it seemed it couldn't get any better, news comes from UKIP's treasurer, Stuart Wheeler, that he has been in contact with no less than eight Tory MPs who may be thinking of defecting to UKIP.

Without wishing to poor cold water on our jubilation or disparage Mr Wheeler's efforts, Tory defections, actual or potential,  at this time are something of a double-edged sword: how UKIP is perceived by the British public is very much in a state of flux, and we have a golden opportunity to cement it in the minds of the public as, in Nigel Farage's words, "neither right wing or left wing", instead of just a repository for disgruntled Tories.

Clearly if we are seen as "the Tory Party of old" then this could potentially severely limit our appeal in working class constituencies like Rotherham, and therefore cap our appeal generally. Moreover, it would mean that the rise of UKIP would risk weakening the Tories but leaving Labour very much intact.

Whereas the Tory party is now a pale shadow of it's former self, bitterly divided with a demoralised activist base and membership in free-fall, the Labour movement is a far more dangerous enemy. It is very much signed up to the metropolitan liberal cultural agenda just as the Tories and Liberal Democrats are, but it is even more authoritarian, pro EU, pro state control and pro political correctness. Because when in power the Labour party deliberately set about "sovietising" British culture through high state spending, vastly increased public sector employment and high immigration, it's agenda and client groups are now deeply entrenched in British society. Not only does this give the Labour Party a natural "floor" to it's support, it also allows the broad Left's Gramscian cultural agenda to be persued ruthlessly irrespective of whether the Labour Party is in our out of power, as we have seen in Rotherham.

However, Labour strategy came very much at the expense of it's traditional voting base - the indigenous working class, who are in large measure repelled by it. As someone brilliantly put it, within one generation in the eyes of the Labour Party the working class went from "the salt of the Earth to the scum of the Earth". The party is now dangerously isolated from much of it's base it took for granted for so long, with no obvious route back.

Thus, a high profile defection or two from the Labour Party to UKIP would be both a devastating blow to the party and a major step forward for UKIP: we would be confirmed as a party for everyone outside of the arrogant and remote metropolitan liberal elite, and there would be almost no limit to our potential appeal. Moreover, Labour does still retain a few MP's like Kate Hoey, Frank Field and Austin Mitchell from it's ancient Christian socialist tradition from when it famously "owed more to Methodism than it did to Marx". Sadly that tradition seems to have a very bleak future in what is now a party wedded very much to cultural marxist ideas, and it may not take that much for a Labour MP or two to jump ship, just as many did in the 1980s to form the SDP in response to the party's then dominant economic marxism.

Get on that phone, Mr. Wheeler!