UKIP – Bigotry The Mail Missed

“UKIP's vile Mandela 'slave' rant exposed: Disgusting remarks made about South African president and murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence 'reveal true face of party'” thundered the Mail On Sunday yesterday, as Glen Owen dished the dirt on the party’s internal online forum. But it was the kind of thing that didn’t get into his article that tells you rather more about this body.

Not least is the omission of their own revelation that Victoria Ayling, close ally of Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, and who said of immigrants that “I just want to send the lot back”, had been a member of the racist National Front (NF) some years ago. This is important, as UKIP bans former BNP members from joining its ranks – and the BNP was born out of a split within the NF.

John Tyndall, who founded the NF, left after the 1979 General Election, with Private Eye magazine alleging there had been a falling out between him and Martin Webster, who was gay. Tyndall, who led the BNP from 1982 to 1999, was a notorious homophobe. And to be an NF member in the late 70s, with Tyndall’s 1962 conviction for paramilitary organising in recent memory, is seriously bad.

It gets worse: last Friday, UKIP Euro-election candidate Gawain Towler looked at the “Scruton Manifesto” and concluded that UKIP already embraced its principles. Roger Scruton founded the Salisbury Review, which for some years embraced the concept of repatriation for immigrants. Its contributors, as I noted recently, are still prone to using unfortunate language when talking about ethnic minorities.

So now we have two reasons not to touch the Farage fringe with the longest of bargepoles. And, as the man said, there’s more: on the same UKIP Daily site that Towler used to show his support for Scruton, Nigel Jones, another MEP hopeful, gives the impression of rank paranoia as he froths at “Europhiles” in what is called “LibLabCon”. Perhaps “EUSSR” will be along shortly to keep it company.

And another item missing from the MoS charge sheet is the behaviour of another of the UKIP faithful it mentions, Martin “Marty” Caine from the pleasant seaside town of Poole. In a Twitter exchange with Phil Dore, he referred to the family of murdered soldier Lee Rigby as “idiots” (as well as, separately, mounting a defence of the EDL). UKIP deny they are in any way allied to the EDL.

Caine then threatened to sue Tom Pride, who called supposedly libertarian UKIP “about as libertarian as I’m a catwalk model”, for pointing out that he had, er, called Lee Rigby’s family “idiots”. Which he had demonstrably done. As Littlejohn might have said, you couldn’t make it up. And that concludes today’s Kipper kippering of the party’s racist and bully-boy underbelly.

Nobody with brain engaged should even consider voting for this shower.