He tweeted something about how good it would be to renationalise some industries in reply to someone later though. I think we are looking at one confused individual.

“But wait for it… Mr Walker has since joined UKIP – further into the deep dark depths of the right.”

Given that he appears to be anti-Europe, pro-“core Conservative values”, and anti-elitism, I’d say moving to UKIP makes quite a lot of sense.

How do you spell “Walker” ?

The thing is everyone’s definition of progressive is different, and usually refers to whatever I happen to like (unless you’re someone who really doesn’t like change and therefore dismisses those who have ‘progressive aims’ and so you use ‘progressive in a pejorative manner’).

For example, I would say it would be progressive to ditch the Euro, get rid of the EU and enlarging the Commonwealth (probably needing to make it less obviously ‘British’ and share power equally), and to make the state much more local, and with it smaller where it is currently unnecessary or unlikely to bring any positive change. Essentially I see it as a progressive thing to acknowledge that local neighbourhoods (which are hopefully connected enough to be seen as communities) are the best places to make decisions, and then co-operation is far superior to coercion. I would see progress to be less reliant on mass media to determine priorities, and with it the vested interests of the rich, powerful and famous (on the right AND left).

To be honest, UKIP is one of the parties that might best fit that, although I have reservations about supporting them as they seem to be more right-wing than localist/libertarian, which is what I would class myself as (a pragmatic mild anarcist/libertarian mixture!).

I don’t really see Labour (both New Labour and New New Labour (and what I know of previous Labour) and their beliefs that the state can solve major issues as something that is backed by evidence (or indeed reason), and so for that reason I see it as a non-progressive direction to head down the statist route.

Basically he’s a hard line right-winger and he’s angry that the tories right now are neither hard line right wing enough or popular.

For a summing up of UKIP policies, they seek to leave the EU – create a flat tax (much less progressive as the working poor pay much more and the wealthy pay much less) – bring in health vouchers so the public can opt out of the NHS for private healthcare (with suitable top up from their own pockets) and they would like to bring back hunting with dogs.

Basically they are a party triangulating their positions to attract hard-line right wingers from the tories – and it is working.

I love it when people talk down UKIP based on their ignorance of UKIP policy. UKIP has a good mix of left and right wing policies. As a party it’s pretty unique in having the realism of the right and social conscience of the left.

@ 6 wonkotsane

While I agree it’s an oversimplification to dismiss UKIP as wholly right-wing, there’s not much “social conscience” in a flat tax rate, which means withdrawing a huge amount of support from those who most need it in the name of saving money for rich folk.

The people that UKIP do defend that I would agree need defending are small business owners. Aside from that, it mainly seems to look after the interests of the rich and of the archetypal resident of the home counties. The term I’d use would be “little Englander”.

7 – I think there’s a pretty hefty split in UKIP between the golf-club tendency and the new wave little libertarians. A party with Godfrey Bloom on one end and Alexandra Swann on the other contains a fairly wide degree of opinion.

But then that’s the case with all parties – all of them are coalitions to an extent. As and if UKIP gets larger (and it’s something of an anomaly that in a country that trends centre right if it trends anything at all, there are two major parties on the centre left and only one on the centre right) I’d expect to see that diversity within UKIP increase rather than otherwise.

As a good Conservative, I find UKIP off-puttingly certain that things have obvious and straight-forward solutions. Very un-Tory that.

@ Tim

Agreed – any party that isn’t limited to single-issue wonks will look a tad schizophrenic when you examine the views of the individual members. I believe our own Tim Worstallt (née Worstall) works or worked for UKIP; seem to remember him allowing that some of the social policies are silly, but saying that he relished the opportunity to work on a libertarian economic policy.

“As a good Conservative, I find UKIP off-puttingly certain that things have obvious and straight-forward solutions. Very un-Tory that.”

This is actually the thing that annoys/amuses me most about UKIP. They really do seem to pursue a policy of “if it makes a nice soundbite it must be right”. More so than any other UK party I can think of.

9 – the fringe of the Tory right and the Labour left share that habit though don’t they?

“If we just do this one thing (that perfectly fits all my prejudices) then EVERYTHING will be all right. Your failure to do this proves you are no true Tory/lefty”.

Owen Jones (or, ahem, Sunny) is just Matthew Sinclair in a mirror.

@chaise The flat tax would come with an increased tax allowance to take the most low paid people out of the tax system altogether which is surely a good thing? As for rewarding the rich: the left are always banging on about how wealthy people should pay their “fair share” but “fair share” seems to be as much tax as it takes to ensure they aren’t any better off than your average man on the street. I would be worse off financially under UKIP’s flat tax but I support it because it’s the right start to a tax and spend regime that should aim to get tax down to 10% at the most with the books balanced.

@ 10 Tim J

Oh yeah, that’s common: someone thinking that their simplistic pet cause would be the solution to all of life’s problems, failing to consider what a huge coincidence that would be.

My issue with UKIP isn’t that. They have a full manifesto. It’s just that it seems to be built on nice-sounding (for a given value of ‘nice’) but poorly thought-through ideas.

Like I’ve said on here before, it’s like they went down to their local pub round about the time that everyone was getting rowdy and then shouted out concepts, basing policy on what got the biggest cheers and boos:

Foreigners: BOO!
Beer: YAY!
Tax: BOO!
The Queen: YAY!
Abanazar: BOO!

I’d also like to correct the misconception that UKIP is party of right wing disaffected Tories. I’ve been a UKIP member for 3 or 4 years and I’ve never voted Tory in my life. I come pretty much bang on the centre on the political compass, primarily because of my mix of left and right wing belief rather than a centrist approach to everything. The UKIP memberships is consistently inconsistent, ranging from hard left to hard right and even the odd one that’s not even eurosceptic.

@ 11 wonkotsane

“The flat tax would come with an increased tax allowance to take the most low paid people out of the tax system altogether which is surely a good thing?”

That’s a good thing, but it’s completely overshadowed by the huge loss in public income and the rebalancing of responsibility from the richest to the fairly poor.

“As for rewarding the rich: the left are always banging on about how wealthy people should pay their “fair share” but “fair share” seems to be as much tax as it takes to ensure they aren’t any better off than your average man on the street.”

According to whom? No party I know of supports this view (which would essentially require 100% tax on everything over about £27k), and while I’m sure a few individuals do they’re hardly representative of “the left”. Frankly I think you’re making this up.

“I would be worse off financially under UKIP’s flat tax but I support it because it’s the right start to a tax and spend regime that should aim to get tax down to 10% at the most with the books balanced.”

How did you calculate that you would be worse off? I ask because UKIP’s site describes it as “a tax cut for all”, meaning everyone should be better off unless you’re taking the benefit you enjoy from state spending into account.

@wonkotsane #10:

I would be worse off financially under UKIP’s flat tax but I support it because it’s the right start to a tax and spend regime that should aim to get tax down to 10% at the most with the books balanced.

10% of GDP? If so, are you serious?

@Robin 10% personal tax – I can spend my own money far better than the British government can, I don’t want or need the state to try and provide an ever increasing number of services and “products” for me. Let me keep most of what I earn and I won’t ask for much in return. The more money we have in our pockets, the more we’ll spend which will create jobs and reduce the burden on the welfare state and therefore the taxpayer – it’s self-financing.

@chaise It says a tax cut for all but I don’t think it would result in a net tax cut for me. I’m happy to be proven wrong and we’ll find out when UKIP is in government and drives through radical changes to the tax system. If you only knew how many people were employed at the taxpayers’ expense administering a tax regime that is so complex it has to be bound in three volumes when printed, you’d be supporting UKIP’s call for the tax system to be simplified. In fact, I’d go further and say it needs to be scrapped completely and started again with simplicity and fairness in mind.

@ 16 wonkotsane

I’m not against simplification where unnecessary complexity exists, although I don’t think that the fact that tax rules are complex is evidence in itself that they are *needlessly* complex.

That, however, is very different from cutting unimaginable amounts of state services and rebalancing the tax burden hugely in favour of the wealthiest. So even if simplification is needed, there’s no way it’s worth the colossal human cost that would be borne under UKIP’s policy. “Laissez-faire” doesn’t begin to cover it.

@chaise Not needlessly complex? The tax blue book (3 volumes) is 11,000 pages! When someone finds a loophole, rather than fixing the underlying piece of poor tax legislation they just introduce a new one.

Cutting services: why not? Why does the state need to provide every conceivable service at the taxpayers’ expense? Why not stop taking so much tax to pay for services and let people keep more of the money they earn and pay for things themselves? The more money we have in out pockets, the more we will spend in shops which stimulates the economy and creates jobs. The more jobs that are created, the less people need supporting by the welfare state which means less tax is needed. As I said, it’s self-financing. The state should provide essential services for people who are unable to provide for themselves, not engineer a situation through high tax and unemployment where as many people as possible are reliant on an increasingly small number of taxpayers to pay for everything for them.

@ 18 wonkotsane

“Not needlessly complex? The tax blue book (3 volumes) is 11,000 pages!”

Like I said, complex =/= needlessly complex. Maybe we do need to simplify tax law, but you’re not going to convince me of that purely by saying it’s really long ATM.

“When someone finds a loophole, rather than fixing the underlying piece of poor tax legislation they just introduce a new one.”

Presumably this is an easier fix. Or you have a rule that works 90% of the time but creates an unwanted loophole in a few cases – so it makes sense to patch the loophole rather than repeal the entire rule.

Did UKIP look into the case against tax simplification, and if so, what did they find?

“Cutting services: why not? Why does the state need to provide every conceivable service at the taxpayers’ expense?”

It doesn’t do that. Like the claim that “the left” want to bring rich people’s incomes in line with the general population, you’re simply making this up.

“Why not stop taking so much tax to pay for services and let people keep more of the money they earn and pay for things themselves?”

Because many people can’t afford essential services, and a cut in tax wouldn’t make the difference. Without state spending, the poor (and relatively affluent for that matter) would die of treatable diseases. And what about schools? How do you expect a five-year-old to pay for their education? Should children get no education if their parents are too poor or too feckless to pay for it?

And that’s before we get onto infrastructure that you can’t really charge for at the point of use. Roads. The law. The police. Ambulances and the fire service. Our political structure. The organisations we have in place to protect consumers from unethical merchants and citizens from companies that want to carry out dangerous business practices. The armed forces, if you think we need them. And so on.

“The more money we have in out pockets, the more we will spend in shops which stimulates the economy and creates jobs. The more jobs that are created, the less people need supporting by the welfare state which means less tax is needed. As I said, it’s self-financing.”

No. The statement above is true enough up to the last sentence. But it’s not self-financing. Cutting tax would reduce the need for the welfare state but it wouldn’t eliminate it. That’s why we have a welfare state – if people were fine without one it wouldn’t have been invented in the first place.

“The state should provide essential services for people who are unable to provide for themselves, not engineer a situation through high tax and unemployment where as many people as possible are reliant on an increasingly small number of taxpayers to pay for everything for them.”

In which case, you’ve already got your wish, because what you say the state “should” do is what it already does. And it costs rather more than the amount UKIP is prepared to set aside for it.