The struggle for UKIP

Losing an election is never a nice feeling, and it's no great surprise that political parties tend to go through mini-revolutions following election losses. UKIP appears to be no different - and, being UKIP, it has naturally been magnified by absolutely everyone.

UKIP faces two fundamental issues, one short term and one long term. The first struggle is that of leadership. Calling Nigel Farage the face of UKIP feels like an understatement, so large is the imprint he has on the party. However, the circumstances of his non-resignation have brought murmurings of discontent from some quarters. Did he do the right thing? Should he have stepped down anyway? Who would take over? Is he the right leader at this point in time? All these questions have been addressed in a myriad of different ways, sometimes without the careful forethought required when asking these questions publicly. 

The Farage question is particularly important given the possibility of the EU referendum being held in a year from now, rather than two or three. UKIP, who would no doubt be spearheading the out campaign, needs to be campaigning for that result fairly soon if that is the case, which means their leader is going to need a lot of energy. Whether Farage has the energy, and the ability to convince undecideds, is an important issue. There's no doubt Farage would dearly like a holiday, but now it looks as though he'll get no such thing - unless others in the party force him to.

The other problem with leadership is that it tends to affect the future of the party well after the leader has gone. Nick Clegg's coalition decision may well mean years in the wilderness for the Liberal Democrats. If Farage takes the party in the wrong direction, it could all have been for naught.

This brings about the second, probably more important struggle. It is one of ideology. What is it that UKIP believes and stands for?

The primary goal of UKIP is to leave the European Union. That has been the case from day dot. But that single belief spans every direction of the political spectrum, and the populism that Farage has so expertly promoted has resulted in large swathes of members joining the party with vastly different beliefs to each other. As long as the EU is an issue, this will only bubble beneath the surface. But the current leadership dilemma has already resulted in some internal comments that UKIP faces an ideological split.

While Farage and MP Douglas Carswell are broadly speaking libertarians (the kind of people who would've joined the Liberal Party before its awkward ideological merger with the Social Democrats), many in the party are not. Some amongst them are classic conservatives who recognise the importance of the European Union in deciding British policy, and are railing against it until the UK returns to being independent from the EU. In this way they often also seek to restore and celebrate British culture. Others are old Labour voters, frustrated by their dislocation from the Labour party of today, a party that has accepted the basics tenets of neoliberalism and mass immigration without seeming to care than their old base were the ones most affected by the changes these policies brought about. Others still are social conservatives who are also concerned with the same issues as old Labour - for lack of a better word, communitarians.

As it stands today, UKIP has members from all corners of the political spectrum, all of which can argue to best represent the ideology the party should embody. But in the long run, it's difficult to see them all working together perpetually. There are too many ideological differences to overcome once the EU issue is decided. At least, there are if UKIP intends to be a major party at some point, which they undoubtedly should.

Most likely is that either the libertarians or the communitarians will win out. Of course, the fact that these two ideologies are more or less opposite to each other makes it difficult to see how there wouldn't be a large split at some point. The Liberal Democrats at least have some similarities between the classic liberals and social democrats that make up the party. 

In any case, UKIP should be a considerable figure in British politics for the forseeable future. If they fail, they will have done a great disservice to politics in the United Kingdom, for right now they stand, above all, as the party of the people.