It's about a week long reverberating around and shows no sign of letting up but a day tomorrow will go down in British political history as the day the worm turned.
I don't talk much about party politics much here or at UKA but what happened has been described by many commentators as a earthquake and I intend to talk about about it.
For those outside of the UK, last Thursday a series of Elections occurred in just some not all parts of the UK for Local Government, one Elected Mayor and a bye election for House of Commons. In Government nationally there is a Tory (Conservative)/Liberal Democrat coalition with the left leaning Labour Party as the opposition.
One thing that unites all three is there support for keeping the UK in membership of an institution called 'The European Union" that the UK joined some 40 years ago, a position it has been clear for a good while isn't in tune with many voters.
This man is the leader of a party that makes no bones about wanting to leave the European Union (EU) and he is called Nigel Farage. He's married, has a non UK born wife and possesses very much a personality that appeals to everyday non politically minded people.
His party, the United Kingdom Independence Party (AKA Ukip) has been going for a short while and appears to know pretty much what it is about and critically what it isn't.
The first thing I will say is it isn't racist and actually it bans members of the British National Party that most would say are from membership and has been known to thrown anyone belonging who holds such views under a bus.
A person on Thursday emailed something that I think is significant and it is this for him Ukip stood for Sovereignty and Democracy as ideals. Sovereignty put simply means having and respecting the National Parliament, putting it and its citizens first and Democracy as in respecting the expressed will of the people. Too many politicians of all persuasions in my experience don't.
It isn't a one issue party either supporting creating modern Grammar Schools for instance. He, the candidates and supports have been called clowns by senior politicians (Yes Mr Osborne I mean you in Knutsford too!).
On Thursday his party won over 140 Local Government seats taking over 25% of the popular vote, came second in Parliamentary bye-election to Labour and appeals to people who have voted Conservative and Labour building on increased support of the last few years. The mainstream parties belated have woken up the the schism between their rather cozy world of almost identical politics (spot the difference between New Labour and Cameron's Tories) and what voters really feel but when people have been promised a referendum on continued EU membership only to find it rescinded they won't fall that trick again.
Have I voted for them? Yes with zero apologies in the European Parliament elections and for the Cheshire Elected Police Commissioner elections cos I liked the candidate.
