Who will govern after 7 May 2015? Readers' opinions

This year’s General Election promises to be the most unpredictable in living memory. For months, as assiduously documented by UK Polling Report, opinion polls have shown a narrow gap between the two leading parties – Labour and Conservative – with the former generally maintaining a narrow lead over the latter. However, this promises to be no typical General Election, for politics in the UK is no longer the traditional two-horse race that dominated the twentieth century after the demise of Lloyd George’s Liberal Party. Old party loyalties have frayed, with many voters displaying an increasing willingness to lend their votes to newer smaller parties, despite the limitations placed on their likely success imposed by the first-past-the-post system (with the exception of the SNP in this respect).

Labour, having sowed the seed of devolution, are shortly, it would seem, about to reap the whirlwind. Following the SNP’s defeat in the independence referendum but subsequent victory in Scottish opinion polls, we could be about to witness the death of the Labour Party as a national force as its MPs in Scotland are swept away by a rising nationalist tide. The Conservative Party has already undergone this process, having effectively become a party restricted to England and Wales. Given the projections relating to the SNP’s likely share of the vote in Scotland, with its rise in popularity being largely at the expense of Labour, Miliband’s party could be heading for near electoral wipeout north of the border in May. Nonetheless, it is clear that the SNP would make for natural bedfellows with Labour rather than the Conservatives. A minority Labour administration propped up by the SNP is a highly plausible scenario, as well as the least desirable, for Labour has indicated that it is in ‘principle’ against the concept of English votes for English laws, which whilst anti-democratic, plays into the narrow self-interest of the Labour Party. We could well therefore witness a situation in which Scotland effectively holds the rest of the Union to ransom, with the SNP exacting as many financial concessions as possible from Westminster, whilst facilitating the implementation of policies not supported by the majority of the electorate in England or Wales. The SNP leadership probably realises that such a tactic would also cause such an adverse reaction in England that it would prompt mass English support for Scottish independence, so as to be rid of an interfering deadweight. However, quite what the recent OPEC-engineered slump in oil prices will do to the long-term fortunes of the SNP and their budgetary credibility, remains to be seen.

A couple of weeks’ ago, a poll was opened to blog readers to gauge their opinions as to the likely shape of our next Government. Unsurprisingly, few believed that a majority Government will emerge on 8 May: some 7% stated that they believed we would have a Labour majority, whereas 14% thought that a majority Conservative administration would be returned. Readers were presented with a wide range of coalition options to choose from, as well as ‘some other configuration’. A total of 14% of respondents opted for this latter category, so perhaps they are placing their faith in the rather distant prospects of majority Liberal Democrat, UKIP or Green administrations.

Readers clearly did not share the view of the pollsters which currently indicate a Labour-SNP coalition as the most likely outcome, as only 7% selected this as the likely result. Even more surprisingly, perhaps, is that nobody thought that there would be the likelihood of a continuation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition. The second most likely outcome of the General Election was adjudged by 21% of respondents to be a Labour Coalition with the SNP, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Greens. Topping the list of likely outcomes, securing 28% of this poll’s vote, was a Conservative Coalition with UKIP.

The only clear conclusion that can be drawn either from this readers’ poll, or from national opinion polls, is that there is massive uncertainty around the outcome of the next General Election. A new poll opens today, gauging readers’ opinions as to how many MPs they believe UKIP will have on 8 May.

Dissecting the Coalition Government's Programme Part 1: Immigration

Traditional Conservatives beware: Cameron has betrayed you. Despite all the talk of a “cap on immigration”, if you look at the substance of the coalition’s ‘programme for government’ issued yesterday, you will see that its practical effect will be to continue the process of ethnic displacement of indigenous Britons as mass immigration will not be stemmed. Indeed, Cameron’s talk of a ‘cap’ was never intended to halt this process, but rather to win votes from those deeply concerned about the immigration issue.

Although the Liberal Democrat policy of an immigrant amnesty is not present in the statement, the generally lax provisions that it contains and obligatory counterfactual assertions about the economic benefits and cultural ‘enrichment’ arising from immigration mean that it is highly palatable to members and supporters of the junior coalition party. However, I would wager that this sense of satisfaction is not shared by many Tory backbenchers, let alone their constituency parties and supporters.

As was pointed out repeatedly during the election campaign, a cap upon immigration is meaningless whilst there is freedom of labour mobility within the EU. Without withdrawing from the EU we cannot control our borders. Moreover, remaining in the EU will not only allow indigenous Europeans to settle in our country, but all of those illegal immigrants who pour through the EU’s porous borders, most notably from the Islamic world. So, despite the programme asserting that there will be ‘an annual limit on the number of non-EU economic migrants admitted into the UK to live and work’ this is a fraudulent statement as the EU is effectively open to such migrants. They will continue to come to the UK, and in increasing numbers. As the Pub Philosopher has noted:

Throughout the election campaign, David Cameron was always careful to make sure he referred to a cap on the number of economic migrants, not the number of immigrants.

In truth, this is not a cap on immigration at all, it is just a cap on the annual number of work permits.

This means that a cap will be placed upon those outside of the EU who seek to legally apply to be economic migrants, but it will not by definition apply to those who arrive illegally. Moreover, a glaring omission from the statement pertains to a source of much of our most problematic immigration: chain migration from Pakistan, Bangladesh and other states with a culture innately hostile to the British and their way of life. This will mean that the process of Islamisation that has already struck deep roots in many of our towns and cities and has had such a detrimental impact upon our national life will accelerate and its proponents will become ever-more emboldened and vociferous. The Guardian, unsurprisingly, is delighted that these fountainheads of demographic woe will not be choked off:

The limit is carefully worded to refer to non-EU economic migrants to reassure minority ethnic groups that it will not cover the much larger numbers coming to Britain for family reunion purposes.

I support the right to such family reunion too: in the ancestral land of ethnic origin with no right of readmission to the UK.

Many who come to the UK without documents deliberately lie about their age and claim to be ‘children’, although to any objective onlooker they are not. Such ‘children’ will not be detained, so expect many more war-traumatised Afghan thugs and jihadi sleepers to enter the country. As for a Border Police Force, given the basic open doors immigration policy advocated by the coalition, it will be toothless. Furthermore, taking into account Cameron’s genuine conversion to political correctness, it will likely be shackled by anti-racism directives to ensure that it does not employ the ethnic profiling that it would require to be effective.

In sum, the coalition’s immigration policy applies no effective controls to mass immigration, and neither is it intended to do so. For the sake of our future as a nation and, more concretely, for the sake of our collective and individual physical security, mass immigration, particularly from culturally incompatible states, needs to be stopped and reversed.

If you are a member or supporter of the Conservative Party, I would ask you to stop and take stock of what you are actually supporting. Just what is conservative about your party? What exactly does it seek to ‘conserve’, other than the New Labour project? It long ago adopted a course that was against the national interest by promoting deindustrialisation and the globalist takeover of our economy, but now it has also embraced with the zeal of the convert the cultural revolution of the New Left; actively promoting the dispossession of indigenous Britons through removing their birth-right to their land and their freedom to determine their own culture and demographic destiny.

I call upon Conservatives to disown their party and to instead lend their support to a credible, moderate nationalist party that favours no class over any other but seeks instead to put our common interest first, and to revive a sense of hope and self-respect in ourselves and our culture that has for so long been denigrated by our political elite. As a nationalist party, it believes in one nation, like Disraeli, and looks to your confidence and support to help build a better future. That party is the British National Party. Learn the truth about the BNP by reading its manifesto, rather than relying upon the distortions propagated by its opponents.

The full text of the coalition's statement on immigration is reproduced below.

17. IMMIGRATION

The Government believes that immigration has enriched our culture and strengthened our economy, but that it must be controlled so that people have confidence in the system. We also recognise that to ensure cohesion and protect our public services, we need to introduce a cap on immigration and reduce the number of non-EU immigrants.

• We will introduce an annual limit on the number of non-EU economic migrants admitted into the UK to live and work. We will consider jointly the mechanism for implementing the limit.

• We will end the detention of children for immigration purposes.

• We will create a dedicated Border Police Force, as part of a refocused Serious Organised Crime Agency, to enhance national security, improve immigration controls and crack down on the trafficking of people, weapons and drugs. We will work with police forces to strengthen arrangements to deal with serious crime and other cross-boundary policing challenges, and extend collaboration between forces to deliver better value for money.

• We support E-borders and will reintroduce exit checks.

• We will apply transitional controls as a matter of course in the future for all new EU Member States.

• We will introduce new measures to minimise abuse of the immigration system, for example via student routes, and will tackle human trafficking as a priority.

• We will explore new ways to improve the current asylum system to speed up the processing of applications.