It's Bercow Against Farage!

In the sort of electoral contest that it is going to be a joy to watch, I see that Nigel Farage is looking to enter Parliament by unseating the obsequious little turd who became the Speaker of the House of Commons this summer. I've got limited time time for UKIP, but I have to say Farage wins a loud round of applause from me for this particular move. Bercow should never have been made Speaker - he is part of the problem with the endemic corruption within the Commons. He certainly isn't part of the solution in any way whatsoever. And since the members of the House of Commons refused to do the decent thing and elect someone capable as their Speaker, it must fall to someone else to take action to remove Bercow from office. And, as an aside, remove him from Parliament as well.

As far as I am concerned, go, go, Farage!

Yet, as well as being a welcome kick in the teeth for Bercow, this also represents something of a departure within British politics. As the linked article above states:

Convention dictates that the other main parties do not put up candidates in the sitting Speaker’s constituency. Labour and the Liberal Democrats will now have to decide whether Mr Farage’s intervention alters that position.

Put simply, UKIP have chosen to piss all over convention. And in doing so, they may enable Labour and the Lib Dems to piss all convention as well. Of course, it will take a lot to enable UKIP to actually beat Bercow. Tens of thousands of votes, according to the last General Election. But regardless of what happens, it is nice to see those who once would never have been challenged according to "convention" now facing genuine democracy at elections.

In some ways, you could argue that this is simply an extension of the same move against political conventions that saw a TV presenter in a bad suit beat an incumbent Tory in 1997, or an independent candidate taking on and beating a Blairite candidate in Labour's heartland in 2006. It certainly shows the move away from the assumption that only the Liberal Democrats offer a true protest vote in this country. It also shows that if a politician really pisses off the people enough, someone will stand up to tell them to fuck off. And this willingness to defy convention and the status quo can only be to the advantage of the British voter. It states simply that if politicians take the piss, then there will be people to fight against them.

Go for it, Farage. I hope you win. And let this be the first of many successful challenges to the politicians representing the greedy, undemocratic and sickening status quo.