Singaporeans First & UKIP: Compare & Contrast

Hello everyone, I hope you have all had a lovely weekend. I'm sure most of you would have heard the very interesting news about the new political party formed in Singapore - 'Singaporeans First'. A Singaporean friend has compared them to UKIP and I didn't think it was a fair comparison but since we've just had our local and European elections here in England, it is a pretty good time for me to talk to you about UKIP since many of my Singaporean readers may not be familiar with them as a political party. Then I will point out how the two parties are extremely different indeed.

Since Singaporeans First (which I shall abbreviate to SF in this article) is a brand new entity, it is probably way too early to pass any kind of judgment on it at this stage. I do feel however, that they did not really hit the nail on the head at their party's unveiling - they danced around issues like GST, education, unemployment, healthcare and pensions when really, with a name like that, people were expecting a UKIP-style approach. They were waiting for them to say the words, "Singaporeans First, PRCs Second, close the gates, no more PRCs, enough PRCs already. We don't want anymore PRCs in Singapore. We don't like PRCs, we don't need PRCs, in fact we want to kick out the PRCs who are already here. We know you hate those PRCs in Singapore. Vote for us and we'll get rid of the PRCs."

But no, the words never came. Was any talk of that censored by the government-controlled media? Or was this an act of Singaporean-style self-censorship - did Tan Jee Say and his team feel that such an approach would be just too controversial? Were they afraid of being seen as xenophobic by the PAP or the media and be labeled as toxic even at their launch? Either way, it never came. It was a let down - it was like ordering a plate of Ohr Luat and digging through mounds of fried egg, potato starch dough, chilli sauce, spring onions and coriander but not finding a single oyster in there. Where's the Ohr in the Ohr Luat? UKIP on the other hand, are vehemently anti-immigration and anti-foreigners. No surprises there, it does what it says on the tin - at least you can't accuse them of being dishonest about it.

Ohr Luat - a Singaporean favourite snack

Is this a good thing? Let's compare this with the situation in the UK - UKIP is pretty much seen as a single-issue party: they are focused on anti-immigration, anti-foreigners and anti-migrants. As the UK is a part of the European Union, Eastern Europeans from poorer EU countries like Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania have free access to the UK labour market. They don't need a work permit, they don't need a visa, they can just turn up here in the UK and start looking for work. So UKIP is campaigning on getting the UK out of the EU as a first step to then increase border controls, to prevent Eastern Europeans from gaining free access to UK's labour market. They want to re-instate work permits for those Eastern Europeans coming to seek work in the UK in order to stem the number of economic migrants from poorer European countries.

You would recoil in horror when you have a look at UKIP's other policies on issues like healthcare, education, law & order or anything at all - they have no clue what the hell they are doing. Take something like healthcare for example (as it is an issue that affects everyone) - UKIP wants to dismantle the National Health Service (NHS) and privatize it, a move that will leave millions of poorer, working-class British people unable to afford the most basic healthcare. What about taxes? Everyone pays taxes right? Well, UKIP wants to introduce a flat rate of tax, so that billionaire bankers will be paying the same level of tax as a primary school teacher, a nurse in a hospital and a cleaner in MacDonald's. Their policies are so utterly ridiculous - but do you know what is even more horrific than UKIP's policies?

What do you think of UKIP's policies?

UKIP voters horrify me even more than UKIP's policies. Such is the problem with democracy - everyone gets a vote whether you're a highly educated intellectual or an illiterate, xenophobic, homophobic racist. My vote doesn't count any more than anyone else's just because I am a well-educated, rational intellectual. This is why UKIP has had a major breakthrough in the 2014 local elections, increasing their number of local council seats from 2 to 163 - exceeding even their own targets. They are also on course to win the European elections (for MEPs) after having campaigned on a strongly anti-EU, anti-immigration platform. This can be put down to one key factor: many voters are "single-issue voters" - their decision is motivated by their stance on only one issue and they will ignore all other factors. So even if they do disagree with UKIP on their stance on healthcare and taxation, they will still vote for UKIP if they are only motivated by their stance on the EU and migration.

Voters like myself look at the big picture - I take the time and effort to consider a whole range of issues that do affect me. In contrast, there are many people who simply do not bother to consider the big picture because that takes too much time and effort, these are political apathetic people who normally take very little interest in politics.  Political parties like UKIP thrive on single-issue voters and they don't mind being perceived as single-issues parties because there are enough single-issue voters to get them some decent results (as proven in the 2014 local elections).

Single-issue voters base their decisions on just one issue and ignore everything else.

Yes there are problems with the British economy, we are still emerging from a long and deep recession as is much of the rest of the world. But blaming it on immigrants, treating Eastern Europeans as the scapegoats is not going to solve any of the problems facing the British economy. However, there are some really ignorant British people who actually do believe that Eastern European migrants are taking the jobs of jobless British people and somehow, everything would be magically solved the moment you expel the Eastern Europeans from the UK. They ignore the fact that these Eastern Europeans often do the jobs that British people don't want to do or are not qualified to do and it is an overly simplistic solution to what is a very complex problem.

The fact that UKIP is basically a one-issue party does limit its appeal to one-issue voters and they may also attract a few protest votes - but their long-term appeal is limited. So turning back to SF in Singapore, perhaps it is good news that they are getting off on the right foot by demonstrating clearly that they are not a one-issue party. This means that they could potentially have a wide enough appeal so they will not be consigned to a fringe opposition party, attracting only protest votes and one-issue voters. That is certainly a good start.  However, without going down the obvious anti-immigration path as their name suggests, I fear they risk being too bland and boring - they really need to establish a brand identity to differentiate them from other opposition parties and most of all, from the PAP.

Why isn't SF addressing the issue that we expect them to talk about?

In the UK (and certainly in other European countries as well as in America), far more money is spent on PR in politics - in the UK, we have coined the term 'spin doctor' as someone who handles PR in politics. To get a taste of what spin doctors do, I recommend the 'The Thick Of It' (a successful TV series about politics at Westminster) as well as the full-length feature film 'In The Loop' (the spin off from 'The Thick Of It'). For the American version, do check out the hilarious 'Veep' as well as 'House Of Cards'. Both the UK and US are light years ahead of Singapore when it comes to political PR. To begin with, Singaporeans politicians often suck at public speaking and have no fashion sense whatsoever (as evident from SP's launch event - oh dear.) So they look bad and they sound wrong - well we're off to a great start here, aren't we? Someone please reach for the marketing 101 manual please.

I'm sorry if this makes me sound shallow and judgmental but just look at the photo on the Yahoo website - Tan Jee Say (a former presidential candidate) does not even look 'presidential' in that photo. He looks more like a taxi driver as do the other two men on the same table with him. Now whilst I cannot find any videos from this most recent SF launch event, I have found other archive videos of Tan Jee Say on Youtube and I was disappointed. Tan was educated at Oxford, he is undoubtedly very smart, thus I had expected him to have a much better grasp of the English language but that was clearly not the case. Perhaps I am judging the whole situation through very British eyes so if Singaporeans really don't care if their politicians dress or speak well, then that really isn't a factor in Singaporean politics.

Why can't Singaporean politicians understand the power of good PR?

This was clearly evident in the YPAP's recent video gaffe. The fact that the PAP can actually defend such a video after it was lampooned widely online it has received online clearly demonstrates that the PAP does not understand PR in politics. The video was so bloody awful it was hilarious - it was so robotic that some people actually thought it was a spoof. Heck, you only have to look at someone like Seng Han Thong to look at the PAP's record on the issue. He looks like a taxi driver, dresses like a taxi driver and speaks worse English than a taxi driver - he is best remembered for his SMRT racist gaffe. Yet he is still a PAP politician today and none of these problems seem to have plagued his political career. Clearly, the PAP doesn't feel the need to bother with PR because they know that they will always been in power and therein lies the problem. They can afford to behave like a bull in a china shop when it comes to PR.

Let me compare this with the situation in the UK - the moment a politician makes a gaffe in the UK, the stand up comedians will be rushing to make fun of him/her on prime time TV within hours. The political journalists and bloggers would be free to criticize, chastise, mock, condemn, attack, lambaste and pour scorn on this politician - so yes, there is a price to be paid for saying something wrong: the media will not spare you. Such is the kind of freedom of speech we have in the UK - even the prime minister and the Queen are not spared. In Singapore, the situation is quite different. The government controls the media and the ST will never express an anti-PAP sentiment. And if some blogger like Roy Ngerng dares to become too vocal about the prime minister, then there will be severe consequences for Mr Ngerng.  So if you can control public opinion like that, what do you need PR for then? This is a uniquely Singaporean situation.

So whilst the British prime minister has to watch what he says to avoid the wrath of public opinion and judgement by the media, the Singaporean prime minister simply controls the media and attacks people like Roy Ngerng to scare his other critics into silence in a 杀一儆百 approach. Whilst I do feel sorry for Roy Ngerng, this episode simply reminds me how much it must suck to live without the freedom of speech in Singapore. I think many Singaporeans do not realize just how different the political system here in the UK is!

British politics can be a lot more volatile - with power being passed back and forth between the Tories and the Labour parties and most recently, we have seen smaller parties like the Liberal Democrats when neither of the two main parties have a big enough majority to form a government. It looks like the 2015 election may be heading to a similar kind of result, with either the Tory or the Labour government having to form another coalition to form the next government. So we can expect the PR machines of all the political parties to go into overdrive in the next 12 months and perhaps I am so used to being wooed by every political party in the UK for my vote, thus that is why I look at the Singaporean approach to PR in politics and immediately cringe. The Singaporean government does not understand the basic principles of PR at all - why are they not spending more money on hiring the best PR consultants?

Will SF become a credible force in Singaporean politics? I think that depends on a few crucial factors. Firstly, a party is only as good as the people who run it. UKIP's main problem is that it has attracted too many extremists (homophobic, xenophobic, racists etc) who have jumped on their anti-immigration bandwagon - this has hurt UKIP's chances of becoming a more credible political party because of these nutcases have discredited UKIP on many occasions. Indeed, UKIP has been forced to expel some of these nutcases who have only brought embarrassment to the party - such as the nutcase who blamed the bad weather on gays. It is way too early for me to judge SF's credibility at this stage, but I will be very interested to see if they are able to attract the right kind of talent to their party. Their challenge is that there are so many other talented people already involved in the opposition movement - SF will either have to poach these talents from other parties (not easy) or find new talents who are not already involved in politics (not easy either - as those talented people who wish to be involved in opposition politics are probably already involved with another opposition party). Will they be scrapping the bottom of the barrel the way UKIP has for talent to join their party?

Secondly, this is just my opinion but I think that there is an opportunity for them to stir things up in Singaporean politics because of this shocking lack of PR-savvy politicians in Singapore. It's not rocket science people, we're not reinventing the wheel here. If you're in a market place where nobody is bothering to use any kind of PR when it comes to selling their product, the first seller to come up with a good PR strategy will be able to gain significant market share with little effort as none of the other sellers are bothering with any kind of PR. Right now, that opportunity is staring at them in the face - whether or not they are smart enough to act on it is questionable. I am simply treating politics the same way I treat any business proposition - it doesn't matter just how amazing your product is, if you don't have a good marketing & PR campaign, then nobody is going to know how great your product is and want to buy it.

Behold the power of good PR...

Finally, will they simply dilute the opposition vote, making it easier for the PAP to win in the long run? Possibly - the various opposition parties really need to stand together to present a united front to fight a common enemy, rather than compete amongst themselves for the opposition votes. Right now, I see the problem with SF is the lack of a distinct image. What is their unique selling point (USP)? What makes them different from other opposition parties and the PAP? They have a good name (that's always a good start) but can they follow through with clear strategies to win the hearts and minds of voters in Singapore? Will they dare to go for the anti-immigration vote and risk being labelled xenophobic? Hey, it worked for UKIP and they don't give a hoot about being labelled racist or xenophobic.

That remains to be seen - I certainly will be watching this space to see if they will be stirring things up in Singaporean politics. Right now, I fear they will be too bland and boring to capture the public's imagination, but I hope I am proven wrong. All they need to do is to hire a good PR consultant, a spin doctor who can help them build their image. So what do you make of SF? Are you prepared to give them a chance or are you already disappointed in them? How do you rate their chances of success in Singapore? Will they be the anti-immigration party? Would Tan Jee Say make a good leader for SF? Please do let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Thank you very much for reading.