Case notes
United Kingdom Independence Party
The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) was created in 1993 by a group of academics, and only emerged politically in the European elections of 2004 and 2009 (Ross and Bhatia 2021, 189). Initially it was a “single-issue” party exclusively focused on opposition to the European Union (Usherwood 2008), but under the leadership of Nigel Farage from 2006 it began to champion other issues such as immigration, and climate change denial (Bale 2018, 267). Traditionally the party did a lot better at European elections than general elections (Crines and Heppell 2017, 232), though this changed dramatically under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government period (2010-15) when the party surged to 12.6% in the 2015 election. By pressuring conservative MPs in the Cameron government, UKIP is widely regarded to have triggered the 2016 referendum on EU membership (Evans and Mellon 2019, 76), the (successful) campaign for which Farage led. After this however the party’s fortunes declined dramatically, probably because its more “strategic” supporters considered its job done on the EU. Farage left the party to form the “Brexit Party” in 2019, but this only scored 2.1% in the general elections of that year.
By the time of the 2015 election, UKIP was campaigning on a notably populist opposition to the political class and its major parties (Gifford 2014, 521), for which is has routinely been labelled “anti-elite” (Ross and Bhatia 2021, 191; Hughes 2019) and “anti-establishment” (Ford and Goodwin 2014, 282; Gifford 2014, 513; Crines and Heppell 2017, 233). Farage and UKIP claimed politicians – variously called “our political class” (Crines and Heppell 2017, 241), “our ruling elite” (Tournier-Sol 2015, 149) or “establishment politicians” – consistently put their own interests above the people (Breeze 2019, 96; Ford and Goodwin 2014, 98), whom they had deliberately “betrayed” (Crines and Heppell 2017, 238), “failed” (cited in Ford and Goodwin 2014, 96), and “sold out” (Geddes 2014, 292). Farage consistently alleged that a “gulf” had opened up between this political class and the ordinary people (Tournier-Sol 2015, 149), and that the people’s grievances were due to the fact that this elite was “self-serving” (Crines and Heppell 2017, 243), and “always put their careers first’” (cited in Crines and Heppell 2017, 238). In doing so, Farage and UKIP did not discern any difference between the three major parties (Labour, Conservative and Liberal-Democrat), whom it lumped together as “the legacy parties,” (Breeze 2019, 96), and as a “LibLabCon-sensus” (Tournier-Sol 2015, 141). The widespread public outrage at the expenses scandal several years earlier may have laid the groundwork for this catch-all opposition to the “political class” (Bale 2018, 268). This is all clear evidence for 3 on OTH_POLCLASS.
UKIP’s main argument against this domestic elite was that it was in cahoots with another, foreign elite, the EU, which it described in similarly populist terms as a ruling elite opposed to the interests of the ordinary people (Ross and Bhatia 2021, 203) and “hell-bent on causing as much trouble for the UK as it possibly can” (Breeze 2019, 97). According to Thorleifsson, in Farage’s speeches the “EU is framed as the external enemy, responsible for uncontrolled migration that in turn threaten jobs, exhausts public benefits and challenges the British and English way of life.” (Thorleifsson 2021, 192). It framed EU question as one of “invasion and oppression,” with posters titled “Ruled Britannia” (a play on the imperial slogan “Rule Britannia”) suggesting that the UK’s sovereignty had been essentially seized by the Brussels (Ross and Bhatia 2021, 188), such that the domestic elite had a “surrendered” the people’s sovereignty to “an alien bureaucracy” (Tournier-Sol 2015, 142). According Tournier-Sol, “Farage presents European integration as resulting from a deliberate plot conceived by its founding fathers in opposition to ‘the people’” (Tournier-Sol 2015, 143). Given the conflation of the domestic elite with this foreign one, we’ve coded the party 3 on OTH_FOREIGN.
Under Farage’s leadership UKIP moved from a single issue party (focusing on Europe) to one that included other issues, especially immigration (Dennison and Goodwin 2015; Geddes 2014, 294). UKIP initially connected the issues of EU membership and immigration, particularly in relation to the immigrants from Eastern Europe (Tournier-Sol 2015, 146). The party used the 2015 EU refugee crisis to suggest that the UK, were it to stay in the EU, would have no choice but to accept more asylum seekers than it could handle (Bale 2018, 270). However as the party grew its focus on opposing immigration grew beyond just a facet of its opposition to Europe (Gifford 2014, 522), claiming that immigrants both within and beyond the EU as a threat in economic, ethno-cultural and security terms (Thorleifsson 2021, 191). Economically, migrants from Eastern Europe were classed as a threat to British jobs (Bale 2018, 273), and it ran posters depicting British construction workers begging on the side of the road because “British workers are hit hard by unlimited cheap labour” (Ross and Bhatia 2021, 203). Culturally, immigrants from non-western backgrounds were classed as an existential threat to the western way of life (Thorleifsson 2021, 188), and Farage lamented that immigration had made parts of the UK seem “like a foreign land” (Bale 2018, 273). Immigrants were also considered a threat to public safety (Thorleifsson 2021, 193). This immigration crisis, according to the party’s communications, had been “engineered” by the previous labour government “with complete disregard for their traditional working class vote” (Breeze 2019, 97). (OTH_IMMIGRANTS = 3).
As is clear in the above, the party’s rhetoric regarding immigration had a clear ethno-nationalist dimension which was opposed to mulitculturalism (Breeze 2019, 94–99). For example, Farage claimed that “92 per cent of ATM crime is committed by Romanians.” (cited in Crines and Heppell 2017, 240), and that Muslims in the UK represented a “fifth column” (Saleem 2020, 465). In response to the Scottish Independence referendum, according to Ford and Goodwin, “Farage and his party have positioned themselves prominently as the voice of English nationalism” (Ford and Goodwin 2014, 277). However, UKIP was not as explicitly ethnocentric as other far right British parties (such as the British National Party) (Hughes 2019, 250), or other hard right populist parties in Europe (Thorleifsson 2021, 188). “UKIP,” according to Hughes, “are careful to avoid accusations of racism or xenophobia, and therefore their othering is sometimes quite subtle.” (Hughes 2019, 250). One of the reasons Farage gave for forming a new party for the 2019 vote was that UKIP had become “too extreme” on its ethnocentric nativism. (Thorleifsson 2021, 189). Due to this, we don’t think that UKIP in 2015 quite deserves a 3 on OTH_ETHNIC, and hence we’ve coded it 2.
The OTH_ECONOMIC variable is somewhat difficult for UKIP. Farage generally steered clear of traditional economic policy questions like unemployment benefits or wages, and implied his business acumen (financial background) was a key credential for governing (Crines and Heppell 2017, 238, 244). Yet, occasionally he and the party engaged in rhetoric demonising big business as a component of the elite, and UKIP voters generally shared the anti-business scepticism of labour voters (Ford and Goodwin 2014, 94). For example, Farage once said:
I accept that open door immigration and mass cheap labour is good for rich people because it means cheaper nannies and cheaper chauffeurs and cheaper gardeners. And it is good for very big businesses and it is good for big landowners because it keeps their wage bills down. (Ford and Goodwin 2014, 88)
Likewise, some party material claimed that “Tories continue to [support open immigration] to suit big business.” (Breeze 2019, 97). However the fact that very few secondary sources mention this probably speaks to the issue’s relatively low salience compared to other “others” in the party’s populist rhetoric, and hence we’ve coded UKIP as 2 on OTH_ECONOMIC. Despite some occasional criticism of the military’s neglect of soldiers (Breeze 2019, 97), we’ve seen no evidence of substantial OTH_MILITARY rhetoric (= 1).
While the party had some conventionally left leaning policies, like support for public health and housing, the higher salience of its nativism and nationalism has led it to be universally considered “right wing” (Hughes 2019, 249; Gifford 2014, 513; Tournier-Sol 2015, 147) or “radical right” (Ford and Goodwin 2014, 277). There may be an argument for it to be placed at R on the LR_POSITION given its distance from other extremist right parties, but we’ve coded it FR.
While Farage was in charge most sources emphasise that he and the party “were essentially synonymous” (Hughes 2019, 250), and that UKIP was a “one-man band” (Tournier-Sol 2015, 153). Even during the brief period in which Farage stepped down as leader (2009-10), he was mentioned more in UKIP press releases than the party’s new leader (Hughes 2019, 257). The party’s fortunes surged when Farage was re-elected leader in 2010 (Crines and Heppell 2017, 232), and according to Evans and Mellon he personally boosted his party’s fortunes unlike any other party leader at the time (Evans and Mellon 2015, 10) (CHARISMA = 3). We’ve seen no evidence that UKIP was a threat to liberal democratic norms (LIBDEMNORMS = 1), nor that Farage was any kind of insider in previous governments (INSIDER = 1)
References
Bale, Tim. 2018. “Who Leads and Who Follows? The Symbiotic Relationship between UKIP and the Conservatives–and Populism and Euroscepticism.” Politics 38 (3): 263–77.
Breeze, Ruth. 2019. “Positioning ‘the People’ and Its Enemies: Populism and Nationalism in AfD and UKIP.” Javnost-The Public 26 (1): 89–104.
Crines, Andrew, and Tim Heppell. 2017. “Rhetorical Style and Issue Emphasis within the Conference Speeches of UKIP’s Nigel Farage 2010–2014.” British Politics 12 (2): 231–49. https://doi.org/10.1057/bp.2016.2.
Dennison, James, and Matthew Goodwin. 2015. “Immigration, Issue Ownership and the Rise of UKIP.” Parliamentary Affairs 68 (suppl_1): 168–87.
Evans, Geoffrey, and Jon Mellon. 2015. “The Political Popularity Contest.” Significance 12 (2): 8–10.
Evans, Geoffrey, and Jonathan Mellon. 2019. “Immigration, Euroscepticism, and the Rise and Fall of UKIP.” Party Politics 25 (1): 76–87.
Ford, Robert, and Matthew Goodwin. 2014. “Understanding UKIP: Identity, Social Change and the Left Behind.” The Political Quarterly 85 (3): 277–84.
Geddes, Andrew. 2014. “The EU, UKIP and the Politics of Immigration in Britain.” The Political Quarterly 85 (3): 289–95.
Gifford, Chris. 2014. “The People Against E Urope: The Eurosceptic Challenge to the U Nited K Ingdom’s Coalition Government.” JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 52 (3): 512–28.
Hughes, Ceri. 2019. “It’s the EU Immigrants Stupid! UKIP’s Core-Issue and Populist Rhetoric on the Road to Brexit.” European Journal of Communication 34 (3): 248–66.
Ross, Andrew S., and Aditi Bhatia. 2021. “‘Ruled Britannia’: Metaphorical Construction of the EU as Enemy in UKIP Campaign Posters.” The International Journal of Press/Politics 26 (1): 188–209.
Saleem, Shahed. 2020. “The Mosque and the Nation.” National Identities 22 (4): 463–70.
Thorleifsson, Cathrine. 2021. “In Pursuit of Purity: Populist Nationalism and the Racialization of Difference.” Identities 28 (2): 186–202.
Tournier-Sol, Karine. 2015. “Reworking the E Urosceptic and C Onservative Traditions into a Populist Narrative: UKIP’s Winning Formula?” JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 53 (1): 140–56.
Usherwood, Simon. 2008. “The Dilemmas of a Single-Issue Party–The UK Independence Party.” Representation 44 (3): 255–64.