From the Washington Post:
U.K. Independence Party surges in elections
LONDON — ... The anti-immigration U.K. Independence Party staged a dramatic surge Thursday in local elections in England and Wales, with results on Friday showing voters delivering a brutal whipping to the Conservatives and their junior coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats.
Political pundits said the results represented one of the strongest showings by a nontraditional party in Britain since World War II, with the gains underscoring the rise of populist and nationalist parties across Europe.
At the core of the party’s platform are aspirations to withdraw Britain from the European Union and impose new curbs on immigration, and the powerful showing sets U.K. Independence up to be an increasingly influential force in British politics. In recent months, its growing support in national polls had already sparked Britain’s three major parties — the Conservatives, Labor and the Liberal Democrats — to float increasingly strict proposals aimed at stemming the tide of foreigners. ...
“We have been abused by everybody, the entire establishment, and now they are shocked and stunned that we are getting over 25 percent of the vote everywhere we stand across the country,” Farage told the BBC. “This is a real sea change in British politics.”
The performance by a party Cameron once described as being filled with “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” raised the question of whether its gains amounted to a temporary protest vote or signaled the birth of a more powerful political movement. ...
In fact, analysts said Labor’s failure to pick up even more seats despite Britain’s prolonged economic malaise suggested that its leader, Ed Miliband, had thus far failed to put the party on a clear victory footing ahead of the 2015 general elections. It also suggested that rather than moving to the political left, a significant portion of Britons unhappy with the current Conservative-led government was instead shifting further to the right.
This is all perfectly natural during economic hard times, and just shows how bizarre and artificial is the media push for more immigration in the U.S.
