19.05.2004

Tories in exile

Around the web: UK Independence Party - www.independence.org.uk

The UK Independence Party must have a strange sense of humour. How else can it be explained that the European parliament (an institution it bitterly opposes) is its only significant area of electoral representation? Similarly, what was that cringe-worthy Pythonesque electoral broadcast, featuring a lederhosen-clad chap being slapped with a wet fish, all about? And what can you say about the catapulting of the odious Robert Kilroy-Silk to the head of UKIP's East Midlands candidate list? Surely it cannot believe voters would see this patronising ass as an electoral asset?

Humour, whether intended or not, is a theme running through the website. Firstly the yellow and purple design is absolutely dreadful, but seeing as the Tories have already appropriated blue, and the BNP have the union colours, I am sure it was logical to adopt such a hideous clash. Even worse, Kilroy features quite heavily. The site begins with the announcement that he will be appearing on Question Time this week.

Next we are presented with a (rogues?) gallery from last week's UKIP press conference, featuring Kilroy (again), two of UKIP's three faceless MEPs, and the equally obscure party leader and chair. Bizarrely, they have included three photos of the press themselves and have labelled them "paparazzi". Assuming these photographers were invited to the launch, I would suggest our UKIP web designer takes another look at their dictionary. The final item in the Kilroy theme is a 'Personal message' from our hero. In this piece, Kilroy paints himself as someone committed to "fairness, freedom and justice". The rest is the usual scare-mongering around unelected Brussels bureaucrats and the like. But the real scary thing is that this brand of vague social chauvinism would not look out of place in a speech by Tony Benn or a sermon in the Morning Star.

The Kilroy fan club section is followed by 'Headlines', leading with the decision of wealthy Europhobe Paul Sykes to back UKIP. Next along are a couple of YouGov polls that show 10% backing for UKIP and 48% of respondents for immediate withdrawal from the EU. The party's analysis gets all rather excited by this, predicting "huge gains". But a closer look reveals that this particular poll has a tenuous relationship to reality at best.

On the subject of polls, a little further down we have an announcement that "UKIP tops the lot". This absurd questionnaire asked respondents whether they would vote UKIP, given that it is the only party to consistently advocate EU withdrawal and an end to unlimited EU immigration, and if it was the only party to campaign on this basis. The answer is 35% support. This is like asking, 'Would you vote Respect if it was the only party campaigning against the war, privatisation, a bosses' Europe and environmental destruction?', but once again our surrealist UKIP friends seem oblivious to the worthlessness of such a question.

The manifesto is a boring affair, lacking the kind of froth that makes anti-European rants in the rightwing press at least interesting. Viewers interested in a quick run-down of where the party stands should proceed straight to the manifesto summary. It believes that parliamentary sovereignty can only be guaranteed by leaving the EU. For the same reason, Britain should keep the pound to secure its economic sovereignty. Furthermore the treasury would be in receipt of an "independence dividend" of £20 billion - a figure plucked out of thin air, comprising of Britain's EU 'membership fee' and the result of further "deregulation". This sounds suspiciously like free-market, one-nation Toryism to me - could this be motivated by a desire to appear as Thatcher's 'real' heirs?

I could not resist visiting the UKIP gift shop. The garish merchandise has to be seen to be believed, but advertising its "famous" pound lapel with a "Pay a pound to save the pound" slogan - and then charging £1.10 for it - just makes them look silly. The book section in particular really is the literary equivalent of a freak show. For example, it promotes Philip Day's preposterous Ten minutes to midnight, a book that rails against the "axis powers" of France and Germany, and predicts the EU could lead down the road to yet another European war. My personal favourite has to be Chris Story's The European Union collective, a piece seriously arguing that the EU is a "Soviet Leninist deception strategy" to further the insidious aims of an "ongoing pan-German hegemony plan".

If this is the kind of rubbish UKIP is recommending, then socialists should encounter few problems challenging its politics.