A Few Home Truths About UKIP

Given the rise in popularity of Nigel Farage’s UKIP, it’s about time the British people were made aware of the truth about this populist group.

First, their claim to be some kind of ‘alternative’ to the ‘Westminster Elite’. This cannot be the case when they fully intend to continue, in a more extreme form, the failed neoliberal economic system espoused by Thatcher, Major, Blair and Cameron. And when you consider the fact their first elected MP and second if Mark Reckless wins Rochester & Strood on November 20, are both ex-Conservative MPs then their claim to be an alternative looks ever more false. In fact, the fact that many of their leading MEPs (including Farage, Roger Helmer, Janice Atkinson, Bill Etheridge and many others) were once staunch members of the Conservative Party – not to mention the presence of Neil Hamilton in the party – is further proof that UKIP are not some new hip kids on the block but the Tory Party reincarnated in a much more extreme form.

Then there’s their claim to be a ‘people’s army’ and an apparent voice of the disaffected working class. Contrary to popular belief, Nigel Farage is not an ‘ordinary bloke down the pub’ but the son of a stockbroker, public school-educated (Dulwich College) and, upon leaving school, started work as a city trader. Anyway, what alleged voice of the working class plans to make people pay to see their GP and privatise the NHS (which Deputy Leader Paul Nuttall has stated should happen on numerous occasions)? What voice of the working class plans to remove legislation protecting workers’ rights (the real reason why UKIP wants us to leave the EU)? What voice of the working class would even think of suggesting a 35% flat tax (which was in their 2010 election manifesto)? The truth of the matter is that pretending to represent the working class is exactly that when their policies would hammer working people and be drastically in favour of big business.

Finally, while officially UKIP do not take a racist line, their anti-EU and anti-immigration stance is making racist and xenophobic bigotry more acceptable and, given that Fascist groups Britain First and the EDL have instructed their supporters to vote UKIP, the party is playing a part in the growing hostility among ordinary working people towards immigrants – their fellow human beings – which is heading dangerously towards 1930s Germany levels.

Do the British people really, seriously, want all of the above?