Politics: Are UKIP Quietly Re-Building?

The future of the UK Independence Party is up for grabs. Having played a crucial role in pushing Britain into Brexit, UKIP has now entered a battle over its identity that could see it descend into a militant hard-right group or fade into the obscurity suggested by its catastrophic collapse on election night from 12.6 per cent of the vote to just 1.8 per cent.

Nigel Farage has ruled out any imminent return to the party’s leadership, warning it would “return to being an amateur shambles” unless it replaced the “totally unqualified people” who he says now control its internal structures. The loss of Farage, who has been something of a uniting figure for the party, is likely to scatter votes in its new leadership election across several minority factions of the party.

Many members are worried that more radical members may see extremism as a means of survival, with UKIP’s standing as a bona fide political party being hijacked by neo-fascists. Nominations for the leadership close on July 29, with the results to be announced at the end of September, and several prominent Ukippers have made it clear that they intend to stand.

Anne Marie Waters

The anti-Islam activist was selected as UKIP’s candidate for the London seat of Lewisham East at June’s general election but leader Paul Nuttall had her dropped in April, saying that her views on Islam went “way above and beyond party policy”. Her candidacy for UKIP leader has been credited for a large influx of new UKIP members who share her radical views.

She founded Sharia Watch UK in 2014 and is a leading member of anti-Islam group Pegida UK with English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson. The Guardian reported that she could be behind 1000 new members joining UKIP in just two weeks. “It’s possible that in a multi-horse race without a favourite, an election would be won with 5,000 votes,” said a UKIP spokesman. “So 1,000 new members in just two weeks is potentially a fair way towards distorting the result.”

Her leadership campaign was quietly launched in a village hall in Rotherham after the town’s New York Stadium cancelled her July 1 booking. UKIP has insisted this was not an official party event and urged members to think carefully before attending.

The party’s 15-strong National Executive Committee will decide who gets put to the members’ vote but Raheem Kassam, a Right-wing journalist and former UKIP leadership candidate has claimed that the party would be finished if it vetoed Waters. Speculation that Farage and many other senior figures in the party would resign if she were elected suggests she is unlikely to win and there are already rumours that her candidacy will be blocked.

Peter Whittle

The deputy UKIP leader is a Farage ally and frontrunner to win the leadership. Ladbrokes has Whittle at 2-1, Waters at 7-2 and Bill Etheridge at 4-1. The leader of UKIP’s two-members team on the London Assembly, Whittle was the only gay candidate of any party in the 2016 London Mayoral election.

Whittle also follows an anti-Muslim cultural agenda having founded the think tank New Culture Forum. “At a time of threat from extremism, the West finds itself besieged from within and without,” says the think tank’s website. “Too often our enemies and our opinion formers appear to agree that Western culture is an indefensible horror.

This is nonsense. The West is in fact a unique bastion of reasoned freedom. Britain in particular should be proud of the great role it has played in Western education, art and culture.”

Whittle believes the party can prosper in traditionally Labour areas of London by calling for cuts to immigration and foreign aid and campaigning against radical Islam.

Bill Etheridge

Ironically UKIP’s strongest hope of a more moderate leader who would be likely to position it as a mainstream party once posed with a golliwog doll in a deliberate provocation as part of a “campaign against political correctness” when a member of the Conservative Party in 2011.

Elected to the European Parliament in 2014, Etheridge says the struggle with Waters for control of the party is a “turning point. Whichever side wins, the other side won’t have a future in the party.”

His libertarian stance was demonstrated in the November 2016 party leadership contest when the Telegraph described him with the headline “pro-gay marriage, pro-Muslim schools UKIP leadership candidate – who would bring back the death penalty and ban burkhas.” His other policy positions include cheaper beer, more representation for fathers in the family court system, and reintroducing smoking in pubs.

Etheridge’s Twitter feed is a mix of ’80s hard rock band Whitesnake and the comedian Tommy Cooper as well as confusing memes (left) which appear to indicate his key policies.

by Stewart Vickers

 

 

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