Alice in Ukip-land

Alice woke up suddenly. “Oh how horrid!” she exclaimed when she began to remember her dream in UKIP-land. “So strange like Wonderland but much, much more quarrelsome. Don’t they know it is very rude to quarrel so?” she thought. People in UKIP-land

couldn’t have been very well brought up she decided. People in UKIP-land quarrelled a lot amongst themselves but most of all they quarrelled with the people of E-You land. Alice wasn’t sure what the ‘E’ stood for but she decided it meant ‘Every’ so that the people

of UKIP-land could quarrel with Every land. And Alice had decided that because the people in E-You land tried to get along together and be friends and not have quarrels they were especially hateful to the people of UKIP-land. “I didn’t at all like their emperor

Farrago. He was extra horrid. He’s like the angry Red Queen and the Mad Hatter all jumbled up into one spiteful person. I suppose
that they made him their emperor because they believe in imperial measures, and because he is so good at quarrelling and

especially good at being rude to people” she thought. “And they didn’t play any nice games in UKIP-land” she remembered. “Although they must like music because they practise on expensive fiddles” she recalled. (Alice knew about violins, which she

practised on, but she realised she was too young to have an expense fiddle.) “But I wonder why they don’t play any public concerts on their fiddles after they practise so much” she said thoughtfully to herself. “Oh no, the numbers! The numbers, those horrible

numbers!” Her head began to ache when Alice remembered how in UKIP-land they kept shouting all sorts of big numbers. “Perhaps they shouted the numbers a lot so that they could remember them, like I had to do to learn my times tables” Alice mused. Some of

the numbers seemed so strange to her. For instance, in England, where Alice lived (which she knew about from her geography lessons, and she also knew it was next to Europe with lots of other countries in it) apparently 75% of laws came from somewhere

else, from a place called Brussels, said UKIP-land people. “But what were the people who made the laws for England doing with their time? Were they getting 100% of their salary for making only 25% of the laws? That would be scandalous”, thought Alice. (Alice had

just learned about percents at school and she was very pleased with herself for being able to understand them, they seemed very grown-up numbers to use and they weren’t at all so difficult and messy as fractions.) Alice decided that she would ask her Mummy

and Daddy about the percents from her UKIP-land dream. They had told her that soon there would be something called a general election, when grown-ups get to decide who will be making new laws. (Although no generals can be elected they explained to her,

which made her think it should be called a “no generals election” and that grown-ups should learn how to use words more carefully.) The laws are made by people called M-peas they told her. Alice thought it strange that they were named after a

vegetable. She wondered what the ‘M’ stood for, “Mighty” perhaps, or “Magnificent” or just “Mister”? Anyway, whatever they were called the M-peas would go to London, and meet the Queen, and make new laws. “But why are laws made by people named after

vegetables?” wondered Alice. M-peas made laws in England and E-You laws were made in Brussels, which is named after Brussels sprouts, as everyone knows. “And why do those elected vegetable people quarrel so about their laws?” she puzzled. Alice decided

that she didn’t much understand these political things but that when she grew up she wouldn’t have any of her laws made by vegetable people. Laws ought to be made by proper people who know about geography and percents, as she did, and were well

brought up and were not rude and quarrelsome. “Percents are grown-ups’ numbers so shouldn’t Mummy and Daddy and all the other grown-ups ask the people who want to be M-peas if they really believed they ought to receive 100% of their salary for making

only 25% of the laws? And shouldn’t they be doing more than that?” Alice thought to herself. And she did wonder if the M-peas really did much more than that 25% of laws. She suspected that the numbers shouted in UKIP-land were loud but not good numbers. After

all, they did come from a dreamland. It was nearly time for tea, and Alice was very glad because she didn’t want to think any more about UKIP-land and its strutting little emperor Farrago. It was all so horridly quarrelsome, and noisy, and confused and strange and

not at all a nice dreamland. Then she remembered that the White Queen in Wonderland had said that she could easily believe up to six impossible things a day before breakfast. And Alice decided that it must be like that for absolutely everyone in UKIP-land. And

that must be why they were always quarrelling amongst themselves and with everybody in E-You land. Because if they were believing impossible things then it would never be possible to decide which thing was true, ever, because none of them were.

“There! That’s that! ” she exclaimed. Then Alice went for tea and cakes, which she knew for certain to be possible all the way up to one hundred percent.

Kevin Hannon of The Midlands European Movement.
15.4.2010