UKIP and the Left Behind: What a New Party Tells Us About Modern Britain

Political scientist Matthew Goodwin asks: who is voting for the party, why, and what do these changing political loyalties tell us about the current state of British politics and society?

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[VermilionMage]

Why is it "extremist" to say Britain should leave the EU?

[kurtilein]

lol, look at the graph at 3:04. the left y-axis is shifted compared to the right y-axis. so you can see the black line going from a high 50% on the left side to a low 50% on the right side. now that is one seriously deceptive graph.

[RobertBedfordVEVO]

I am a junior games programmer and i'm voting UKIP 

[razStarcraft]

I'm young and voting UKIP for one.

[Goofy.]

Interesting. UKIPs vote comes from the working class.

[alphabert]

Maybe RSA should change the intro to something like:"He who thinks that voting some other party than the status quo parties in any given democracy must be perceived as a threat to society is either MAD or a POLITICAL SCIENTIST."

[Dunnlrs]

I am a professional IT engineer, younger than 54. I am voting UKIP.

I want a return of democracy to this country. When I vote for a PM I want to vote for someone who represents and runs the UK. I do not want to vote for a Project Manager that reports to a European Commission.

The statistics described in these video are misleading.

[kurtilein]

lol, and more deception at 3:50. in this graph, the y-axis is also shifted, even more wildly than at 3:04. on the left it goes from 0% to 45%, on the right it goes from 40% to 95%.   what was he thinking when he twisted the graphs so badly? for those that notice it, it undermines all his credibility. and those that dont notice it get deceived.

[TemporalOnline]

I don't get the graphs shown in this presentation. Why is everything not normalized? 0-40 to 40-90? 0-50 to 20-80?

[joihnthomas]

Well I don't fit that demographic in terms of age, class, level of education, nor have I been "left behind". I also know of several others who don't fit that demographic and will also be voting UKIP.
I think the bottom line is that the media and the political establishment are all very left-wing, there are some of us out there who can think for ourselves and despite all the time, money and effort we haven't been brainwashed and indoctrinated by Cultural Marxist/Political Correctness.
Despite all the attempts to diminish traditional values we still have a strong national identity, we still hold family values and traditions near to our hearts, we love our history and are a proud people.

[TheArchive]

I'm a student studying a BSc (Hons) - I have enough UCAS points to enter Oxford University and Cambridge University - I'm voting UKIP :D

[roidroid]

6:40 [Graph] "Share of group mentioning immigration."
*Mentioning?* 
- It's implied that this graph is of people talking about restricting immigration. 
- But it's also a graph of people talking about OPENING UP immigration (primarily as a response to the above group).
- And it's also a graph of people who are eating popcorn and talking about the above 2 groups: it's a graph of people who are *talking about people* who are talking about immigration.  ie: Political scientist Matthew Goodwin, the very presenter who gave this talk, has accidentally included himself in his own graph.

What exactly are we the audience supposed to gain from this graph?  I mean, other than the missing lesson in *positive feedback loops*.
It would be moronic to interpret the graph as evidence that the professional classes are taking on an anti-immigration stance.

[RightNowIGuess]

I am a 26 year old immigrant from Africa. I have been on JSA for about 4 weeks total in many many years here. I pay my tax proudly (bar funding wars!). I speak English, I integrate in the British ways, I am interested in British politics and history and I vote UKIP. 1 Vote so as not to dilute the 1st, straight to UKIP. 2nd Would be Tory. Never Labour or Lib Dem or Green etc. I am very glad with the recent local and European election results. A Tory / UKIP collation would be great + a IN / OUT EU referendum asap.

[rpfs]

Live in Manchester, born in 81, educated but come from a working class background. Previously never voted. I voted for UKIP (and will do again) because the first step towards doing anything positive (whether that be libertarianism, as I believe, or socialism, as others believe) is to make decision making as local as possible. 

[DrCrYz]

I'll be voting UKIP even though non of their policies will be particularly good for me apart from 1 single issue, immigration. I will vote not for my overall interests but for the last change of saving my country from mass immigration from Islamic countries, Islamic enclaves have popped up all over the country and their ideology is antithetical to what British people stand for, equality for all. We have imported female genital mutilation, honour killings, terrorists, radical preacers, radical hate teaching mosques, schools teaching them to hate our country etc etc.

Vote UKIP this may be the last chance to save Britain you get before it's too late, the main stream media are lying to you about how bad things are now, if you care for your children and theirs, you know what to do.

[AnnoyedDragon]

He seems to think that the uneducated are the primary source of Eurosceptic support. I can only imagine that's down to him thinking the educated would be able to get better jobs, hence not being hit by the flood of unskilled labour that the EU's open boarder policy creates.

The problem being, there are plenty of university graduates who find themselves without the experience necessary to apply their degree in the workplace. So they aim lower in an effort to get some sort of job, any job, only to find open boarders have made entry level jobs extinct and they're trapped on the unemployment scrap heap. Unable to get their first job, too over qualified for most jobs, too inexperienced to apply their degree.

So there are plenty of young university educated people who vote UKIP, I'm one of them...

But what is he basically saying? University educated people are more likely to have jobs that immigrants won't take, therefore they don't oppose the EU because it's not their jobs being swamped? What a childish, selfish attitude. I'm all right, so the people not all right don't matter? Working class people don't matter because they're working class and their views are intrinsically ill informed?

He epitomises what is wrong with politics. Look at him, he thinks all the smart people are pro EU and only the ill educated oppose it. Any problems we're witnessing are clearly imagined, we're all too stupid to be trusted to have a say on how our own country is run.

Arrogant elitist shits like him is why people are so disenfranchised with politics.

[Jayremy]

Such a condescending tone, from Mr Fancy Pants himself...

UKIP please win, we need an example for once of a more philosophical libertarian direction- though UKIP isn't quite there it's a step in that direction, immigration isn't- but if you have a over-looming state with welfare programs u can't have open borders.

I guarantee if you get an honest, REAL example of libertarianism in practice FOR ONCE the problems will fade in time of growing injustice and inequity.

[qetoun]

I'm 29 and have voted UKIP for about 3 years. 

[Biggles]

University Educated,  UKIP Voter for 20 years. Not left behind. Saw the writing on the wall years ago. I don't want a federated EU for any EU citizens. Friendly trade yes. Total integration into a United States of Europe NO!!!!

[Snagprophet]

It's a nice analysis of potential backgrounds of UKIP but I don't think it's down to a phobia of cosmopolitanism and multiracialism. Calling them 'anti-immigrations' isn't really accurate. 

The average UKIP voter doesn't hate the fact that there are ethnic minorities in this country, or foreigners. It's more to do with the rate of change, such as whole areas getting swamped up by other ethnic groups when there clearly isn't a healthy mix in a lot of cases. And by healthy mix, I don't mean everything has to be exactly equal in proportion to ethnicities in this country, but it certainly bothers them if there's so many that they don't feel comfortable getting to know them.

Let's face it, there was huge changes regarding immigration during the last Labour government. Fine, if there's statistic saying that an equal amount of Britons are spreading to other countries, that's fine. Have that debate. But you can't be quick to think that a UKIP voter's concerns on immigration is because they can't stand the sight of an African or Asian person or even a foreigner within Europe. Having the debate is what will allow them to obviously allow them to vent their concerns over fast changes.

Now, another subject is the laws in Europe. Why is it that we don't feel like we're all uniting in this semi-federation kind of thing? Because the parties don't have the discussion on Europe. I don't mean whether we should be a member or not, but for affairs which we can believe we can affect the outcome in some way and not feel like we're being controlled by them.

When Nigel Farage talks about accounts not being signed off, most people have no idea what that is about.

When Starbucks, or whoever was refusing to pay tax, is somehow allowed to only pay tax into one of the EU countries, Ireland, because it has the lowest tax, this is an important problem. Why aren't the Conservatives or Labour talking about trying to change this policy?

Another issue with the EU is that it just suddenly manifested around us all without any actual vote for it other than a yes vote for the European Community, which was more or less the European Economic Area (which is a good thing for free trade on this continent).

Why is it that we are powerless to stop companies paying taxes and they have the option to pay it either into one of the member states or into all the member states at the rate of the lowest taxing member state?

I'm in two minds about being part of the EU, let alone a European Federation. But these things needs addressing and UKIP seem like they're they only ones who are actually promising anything at the moment. Conservatives already lied about the EU, Labour probably will.

It's kind of like how the party I trust the most in this country is the BNP for all the wrong and terrible reasons. I trust that they'll push ethnic minorities to leave the UK. That's pretty pathetic that a party like that is the only one I actually trust to do anything at the moment, even if that something isn't what is greatly desired by myself.