UKIP: the victory of the ruling class

In a protest against an out-of-touch political class, the British public have voted for a party led by someone whose class background is indistinguishable from Cameron's or Clegg's.

In this respect, UKIP's success demonstrates not the weakness of the ruling class, but the exact opposite - its complete victory.

I don't just mean this in the sense that political power is held in the hands of such a narrow group that the Dulwich-educated son of a stockbroker can present himself as an outsider.

What I mean is that, as Adam says, UKIP is not an anti-establishment party. For example:

- The demand for tougher border controls is a call for an increase in the power of the state.

- Whilst its possible that immigration control might be very slightly positive for low-wage workers, it would be bad for average wage-earners, and there are many better ways of improving the lot of unskilled workers.

- Hostility to gay marriage is fundamentally anti-liberty, as it asserts the power of the state to intervene in private relationships.

- The call for a flat rate 25% tax would be a big tax cut for the rich.

- Cutting employment regulations would worsen working conditions and job security for ordinary workers, without creating many jobs.

- The demand that welfare recipients do compulsory workfare and not buy cigarettes or alcohol would be a reduction in the welfare state safety net, to the detriment not just of actual recipients but also to those in insecure jobs who fear becoming jobless.

UKIP's policies, then, do not challenge either the power of capital over worker or (what is a similar but distinct thing) the power of managerialists.

This is why I say their support represents the victory of the ruling class, because it demonstrates their complete power. I'm thinking here of Steven Lukes' "third dimension" of power:

Is it not the supreme exercise of power to get another or others to have the desires you want them to have - that is, to secure their compliance by controlling their thoughts and desires?...Is it not the supreme and most insidious use of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things? (Power: a radical view, 2nd ed, p27, 28)

It's in this sense that the ruling class has triumphed. The discontent that people might reasonably feel against bankers, capitalists and managerialists has been diverted into a hostility towards immigrants and the three main parties, and to the benefit of yet another party with a managerialist and pro-capitalist ideology. In this way, even "protest" votes help sustain existing class and power structures.

Comments

[Julijuxtaposed]

Spot on! Farage is yearning to preserve the Establishment and it is a mark of how much this nation has dumbed down, or perhaps surrendered, that they would align their protests with such an entropic mindset as UKIP portrays.

[Guano]

Is "Europe" an establishment/anti-establishment issue?

Back in the early 1970s the political establishment was very much in favour of joining the Common Market, for business reasons. The Conservative Party was horrified at the idea that the Labour Party was proposing a referendum. The disquiet about Europe in some sections of the Labour Party was perceived as part of the Party's unreliability and making Labour electable involved a slow process of coming to terms with Europe.

The situation today is different but I cannot quite see what the political establishment thinks about Europe. Manufacturing industry has lost its political clout: you heardly hear about the CBI these days but back in the 1970s there was a CBI mouthpiece on the TV every day. So possibly the political establishment has lost interest in Europe except that they can see how difficult the process of leaving would be. The Labour Party appears not to know what to do: it embraced Europe because it seemed to be a respectable position and now finds that it is actually a point of debate.

There is a debate to be had about the relationship with the European Community but UKIP is part of the noise in that debate and not the signal.

[Peter Whipp]

Cameron et al have blamed all of their failures on Europe. They ought not to be surprised that the people then vote to get out with UKIP.

[Hugo]

Good stuff - except that these are not establishment views. The government is pro-gay marriage for example. Being _reactionary_, by definition, is not pro-establishment.

[Steve]

The call for tougher border controls is a call to increase the power of the law, not the state: the state has as much power over immigration as it wants; calling for weak border controls simply lets the managerialists manipulate immigration for their electoral advantage.

Similarly, tax cuts for the rich is an anti-establishment measure, as it means that more wealth will be controlled by people who are not part of the political establishment, rather than concentrating wealth into the single corporate body of the state.

[Nick Rowe]

Dunno Chris. If the social workers take their kids away (even if they were foster kids, and they got them back) just for being UKIP members, you know they aren't part of the establishment. And are UKIPers part of the University/Cathedral?

[KR]

England has always been authoritarian at heart. Thatcher was very popular among working class and middle class voters, not because of the economy but because of her Conservative and hardline social policies.

[KR]

UKIP is essentially an English SNP. But with Europe playing the role of England. SNP want Independence from England and UKIP want Independence from the EU.

[LordSidcup]

Don't worry.
Nigel's first job when he goes into coalition government will be to negotiate the UK's adoption of the Euro.

[Laban]

Ask the Investors Chronicle how anti-establishment they are, or the Economist, or the Institute of Directors.

If they're against mass immigration, which lowers wages, then they're anti-establishment. And the fact that establishment bloggers are having conniptions is significant.

"The demand for tougher border controls is a call for an increase in the power of the state."

I see. We let everyone in back in 1950 and this is a radical new departure from the norm of unrestricted entry and exit?

[Boursin]

Unrestricted entry and exit is a long-term historical norm stretching back hundreds and hundreds of years. The modern international system of passports and border controls dates only from the outbreak of World War I.

Even British nationality law was entirely uncodified until the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, which came into force in 1915. As did the Defence of the Realm Act, which for the first time ever required even a passport for entry into and exit from Britain, not to speak of visas or other sorts of official permissions.

[Tammly]

Oh get over your self. You're too preoccupied with classes and not enough with the mass movements of individuals.

[Councillor Cassius]

If you start from the currently prevailing left-wing view that 'the 99%' are oppressed, impoverished and should be ripe for revolution, then the fact that many of them have just voted for UKIP does look like a foolish surrender to the ruling class.

However, if you take the view that middle-class Britons are currently extremely privileged compared to the vast majority of the population of this planet, want to keep everything they've got and know that, while others might gain from radical change, they could only lose - then the UKIP phenomenon starts to make perfect sense.