Ukip win first MP: Racism will rise

The Essex coastal town of Clacton-on-Sea made British history early this morning by heralding in its first UKIP Westminster MP Douglas Carswell.

Clacton-on-Sea, not a town noted for high immigration numbers, elected an MP and a political party whose main policies are anti-immigration, anti-European Union and some would argue anti-everything.

The size and significance of Ukip’s win will, whether by design or default, undoubtedly mean that racist attitudes will inevitably rise.

Worse still, those anti-immigrant sentiments quickly translate to racial abuse and attacks mostly directed at African, Caribbean and Asian communities.

Since winning the national popular vote in the European Elections, Ukip has continued its ability to take votes from all three parties, only narrowly defeated, in the formerly safe Labour seat of Heywood, near Rochdale.

What does this all mean for our society? What is most worrying is the fact that Ukip’s simple and effective narrative, ‘Foreigners are to blame for the UK’s social and economic ills, will be challenged even less now. Expect both Labour and the Conservatives, and to a lesser extent the Liberal Democrats, not to challenge Nigel Farage, but to pander to his narrow often bigoted views.

Highly privileged city bankers and their banks who have wrecked havoc across the western world with their ‘casino’ banking practices, price fixing and plain cheating customers in the PPI insurance scam, have hardly ever been part of the narrative that has caused the global downturn and severe austerity. It’s become far easier to blame those migrants, who actually put in much more than they take out, for our present crisis. It’s easy, it's cheap and it has great short term political dividends.

But what does it do to the soul of the nation? It poisons it. It pits Black against White, foreigner against native, and the weak against the strong.

In this political momentous time, perhaps the nation’s savior could be the BME vote. Throughout recent British history, the BME story has been one of fighting for justice, equality and decency. That’s been our role, whether we like it or not. In political terms if we engage in those crucial marginal 168 parliamentary seats, maybe, just maybe moral authority could translate to political decency and with it economic vibrancy.

We mustn’t let the politics of hate and division take hold in this country.

Simon Woolley