The Force is with the fourth party

A Westminster wag last week suggested Ukip leader Nigel Farage bears an uncanny resemblance to Star Wars character Admiral Ackbar.

It’s perhaps unfair to compare the chinless, fish-eyed character who comes from an unknown planet to Admiral Ackbar.

But the comparison is more than cosmetic.

In Return Of The Jedi Admiral Ackbar leads the rebel attack on the powerful but ultimately overblown and immobile Death Star, the rulers of the Empire too sure of themselves and their continued power.

Farage fancies himself on a similar mission, to bring down what he claims is the cosy cabal that runs Westminster.

He’s promised to set off an earthquake under British politics by winning next May’s European parliament elections.

Last week he certainly caused some tremors, scooping scores of council seats and coming second in the South Shields parliamentary by-election.

However, the deflector shields of power are still functioning. Ukip have no MPs and are not in overall control of any councils.

Their ballot box heroics may have caused a disturbance in the political force, but their success isn’t down to Jedi mind-tricks.

Ukip appeal to an anti-politics sentiment, an all too recognisable feeling of being fed-up with professional politicians, political correctness and broken promises despite the fact that, were they to find themselves in power, more than any other party they’d likely have to break manifesto pledges that are as rooted in reality as the plot of Revenge Of The Sith.

Ukip also did particularly well on Thursday because these elections happened to be in the shires, traditionally Tory but where right-wingers are fed-up with Cameron’s Conservatism accommodating issues like gay marriage.

Some Tories, having been put out of office or just feeling put out, raised the issue of David Cameron’s leadership.

Loyal lieutenant MichaelGove described such talk as “bonkarooney” a word unlikely to attract any marks in the exams for which he’s responsible but which sounds like a good name for an alien sidekick in the next series of Star Wars sequels.

Many backbenchers are demanding the PM counter the Ukip threat by legislating now for an EU referendum to be held in the next parliament.

This is daft for three reasons. First, Cameron’s gambit in announcing he’d hold an EU referendum should he win in 2015 was as effective as a chocolate lightsaber in heading off Ukip, as Thursday’s results proved.

Secondly, if Cameron were to seek to legislate for a referendum now, his Coalition partners who don’t want a vote would declare it open season for getting party political pet projects debated in parliament.

A referendum bill could be followed by Lib Dem sponsored motions on a mansion tax, for example, which the Tories would lose and the Government would unravel.

Thirdly, what’s the point of introducing legislation for the next parliament if the Conservatives won’t be in power?

Labour did enough at these elections to suggest Ed Miliband’s strategy of just doing enough may work. One projection gave Labour a majority of one in 2015, based on last week’s results.

However, that has to be tempered with the knowledge that last week’s elections were too limited to extrapolate much with regard to the national political picture.

That’s why the big question about Ukip remains unanswered are they a force to be reckoned with or will they remain a phantom menace?