The results are barely in for the local elections in Britain and already the press is trying to say the astonishing advance by the United Kingdom Independence Party doesn’t amount to much. Or, if it does, it can be ameliorated by adjustments on the part of the Tories — or even the European Union from which UKIP wants Britain to exit. We’d prefer a more optimistic interpretation, that this represents a sign that Britain is coming to its senses and will eventually withdraw from Europe and restore its own greatness.

The future rarely displays her hand. But that’s the way it looks to us, despite the editorial in the Financial Times, which we read every day, saying that UKIP’s victory is a “blow to the political center” (duh) and that mainstream parties “must” offer what UKIP’s leader, Nigel Farage, cannot. The FT does admit that the “establishment” has been “visibly rocked.” Says the FT: “It is time to distinguish between voters who define themselves against the mainstream and those who are aggrieved but ultimately persuadable.”

Persuadable in respect of what? The Financial Times seems to think that there is a group that “can be tempted by the kind of tangible improvements in their lives that can be delivered by practical, level-headed government.” The hope that tangible improvements can be found at Brussels, where your editor lived for some (very enjoyable) years, strikes us as chimerical. Europe is moving steadily toward socialism, paid for by fiat money. It is dominated by atheistic states that believe government is the source of rights Americans and Britons believe were given by God.

UKIP, in the view of the FT, “does not have anything constructive to say about the economy.” It strikes us that exiting the European Union would be the most constructive move Britain could make in respect of its economy. The FT has spent the last two generations mocking sound money. It suggests the “background hum to all this is a steadily improving economy, with employment numbers that are envied abroad.” It doesn’t delve into the fact that the unemployment rate is 6.8%, according to the latest reckoning at Briton.

Nor did it delve into the fact that, as we pointed out in “George Soros’ Two Cents,” between 1947 and 1970 unemployment in Britain failed to move above 3% even once. The end of that streak coincided with the end of the gold exchange standard set up at Bretton Woods. The end of that streak ushered in the age of fiat money, which saw the collapse of the dollar and sterling, the rise of faux currencies like the Euro, and the rise of unemployment to levels that used to be considered a disaster but that are envied by the FT.

We don’t mind saying that the FT offers a sage point when it suggests that there is a difference between local elections and picking the next parliament. Here we’re eager to see UKIP embroider its plan for the Brixit with its outline for modest, limited government at home, a sound currency, low taxes, free trade, and a strong national defense that have always been the combination for growth. It’s one thing to campaign to leave the European Union. But it’s only half the equation. Given the default of the other British parties on pro-growth, supply-side economics, a UKIP is unlikely to be shouldered aside by other politicians trying to pick up those themes.