A Polite Insurgency: The UKIP Campaign

Abstract

Gawain Towler offers an account of the party’s breakthrough in gaining an unprecedented four million votes while simultaneously failing to make a significant impact in terms of gaining parliamentary seats. The campaign is discussed and evaluated, and comparisons drawn between it and those of its more resourced rivals. There is some reflection on the nature of media reporting and the tendency of journalists to focus on some of the party’s less well known candidates, seemingly in attempts to embarrass and portray it as an eccentric irrelevance. Towler reflects on how UKIP’s appeal was curtailed following an ultimately successful but divisive Conservative strategy that focused on the promoting English voters’ fear of a Labour-SNP government being formed.