UKIP on the rise?

UKIP is raising its profile as Britain’s fourth largest political party.

The growth of UKIP is an aspect of the increasing fragmentation of political identity among voters that has been taking place in the last half century.

What seems to be happening on the right is that the Tory Party, as an alliance of business interests and nationalistic/chauvinistic prejudices, is coming apart, with the Union Jack wavers now gravitating to UKIP.

The left, too, might fragment, if the Green Party moves out of its current niche.

If political fragmentation proceeds apace – boosted by PR in the EU elections – we might wonder at what point the current first-past-the-post electoral system for the House of Commons becomes utterly dysfunctional.


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