Boris may be UKIP's undoing

BORIS Johnson's unsurprising announcement yesterday that he was planning to run for Parliament in 2015 will be a heavy blow to UKIP's ambitions.

Mr Johnson's revelation has been expected by political observers and is sure to cause much debate in the corridors of Westminster. It is the impact it will have on the growing threat from the United Kingdom Independence Party which may be the most important factor in his election campaign though.

Speaking to an audience at the Bloomberg headquarters yesterday Mr Johnson said: I can't endlessly go on dodging these questions.

"So let me put it this way. I haven't got any particular seat lined up but I do think in all probability I will try to find somewhere to stand in 2015.

"It may all go wrong but I think the likelihood is I am going to have to give it a crack."

While many in the media have latched onto the idea that this could be the London Mayor's opening gambit in a leadership bid he was quick to dismiss any immediate plans, telling BBC's James Landale: "I think it's highly unlikely that that will happen because there's no vacancy. I think David Cameron has been a brilliant prime minister."

Later clarifying his position on the Radio 4's World at One programme: "When David Cameron finally steps down, in 2030 or whenever, it may be that there's a vacancy, but it will probably be filled by a person who's a teenager now."

It was his eight point plan on Europe, however, which could see Mr Johnson's real achievement as an opportunity for the Conservative Party to draw back some of the voters they had lost to UKIP.

The proposals, laid out in a report  written by his chief economic adviser, Gerard Lyons, clearly state that leaving the European Union could have detrimental effect on Britain's financial institutions, while still opening the door for greater reforms.

"There would be some considerable uncertainty," the report said. "Some may view it as a liberating experience and be positive from the start but the likelihood is that the bulk of the economic, business and financial community would view it as a great unknown. For many aspects of the London economy, the day after any no decision in the referendum would be little different in economic terms from before, especially for those focused on the domestic economy. The financial market impact, however, could be very different."

An eight point agenda specifies the areas which Mr Johnson would look for reforms in, something which UKIP may find brings more moderate eurosceptics back to the Tories.

The key points are:

Scrap social and environmental legislation

Scrap the Common Agriculture Policy

Put justice and home affairs back as an intergovernmental competence

Strike out the provision for ever closer union

A yellow card system for national parliaments

Managed migration so that Britain has greater control over immigration

Completion of the single market in services.

It is Mr Johnson's popularity among the electorate which could provide the fatal blow though. UKIP leader Nigel Farage has relied on his bluff and bluster as a common man to win over voters. In the face of Mr Johnson's carefully staged bumbling buffoonery he may find that he has a losing hand.

A recent ComRes poll placed Mr Johnson on 41 per cent of voter popularity, the most popular British politician, compared to Mr Farage's 26 per cent.

"There is a kind of peasants’ revolt going on, a jacquerie. From Dublin to Lublin, from Portugal to Pomerania, the pitchfork-wielding populists are converging on the Breydel building in Brussels – drunk on local hooch and chanting nationalist slogans and preparing to give the federalist machinery a good old kicking with their authentically folkloric clogs," the Mayor of London wrote in his Telegraph column while describing the rise of UKIP, and other anti-Europe parties. If elected he may now find that he is the Conservatives key weapon in winning back those very same peasants he was once so quick to dismiss.