UKIP Uncovered

UKIP Uncovered
What motivates the leaders of the United Kingdom Independence Party?

Sunday, January 18, 2004

Western Morning News on Farage

Christina Speight kindly called our attention to this item from the West Country's daily paper of 14th January, and we apologise for it having been slow to appear:-

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From Western Morning News 12/1/04 Kate Ironside Column

Explosive views on letter bombings

They have come down on him like a ton of bricks. And deservedly so. Nigel Farage has lost his marbles. At least that's the charitable explanation. In fact the leader [sic] of the UK Independence Party was guilty of a stunning error of judgement when he ventured to suggest that. While deploring violence, he understood the motives behind an anti-European Union letter bomb campaign.

The leader of Labour's MEPs, Gary Titley, whose wife had been injured in one of the attacks, said he was almost speechless with anger. "This is the worst thing I have heard in my entire political life" Mr Titley raged. "The party which makes excuses for would-be murderers in the middle of a terrorist campaign on the European Parliament deserves to be shunned by all democrats."

The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Sir Menzies Campbell, fumed: "Nothing, but nothing, justifies actions of this kind and politicians committed to the democratic process should be unequivocal in their condemnation".

Trapped in a corner Mr Farage chose to fight back. He accused his critics of hypocrisy.

Why, he asked, was it all right for the Labour peer Lord Healey to predict that European monetary union would lead to riots in the streets when it was not all right for him, Nigel Farage, to say he understood the reasons behind the bombs sent to a succession of senior EU Officials and MEPs over Christmas and the New Year?

Mr Farage just doesn't get it, does he? There is a world of difference between the two cases.

Shall we explain?

Lord Healey was speaking theoretically of a discontent which had not happened and, indeed, may never happen.

Politicians do from time to time, on subjects of great importance predict popular opposition of the most colourful form. Very rarely do their predictions prove correct. In 99 per cent of the cases it is mere hyperbole and everyone else understands that.

Opponents accuse the politician in question of exaggeration and the world moves on with a yawn. Mr Farage has attracted such yawns for years with his own repeated predictions that the EU's extending activities could lead to popular unrest and violence.

But these hypothetical warnings are a very different matter to the UKIP Euro MP's sudden decision to latch on to this specific spate of criminal attacks.

Mr Farage needs to be very careful to whom he extends his understanding. He also needs to think much more deeply about what sort of popular unrest a democracy should take note of.

Lord Healey and indeed Mr Farage himself would deserve to be listened to if the EU was provoking Middle England to take to the streets in protest; if ordinary, law-abiding people were taking part in mass demonstrations and peaceful campaigns of civil disobedience; if the EU was attracting the depth of anger that, say, the poll tax did in the 1980s or which the hunting bill does today.

But to argue that the democratic nations which make up the European Union should radically review the scope of their activities together simply because a small group of dysfunctional criminal weirdoes have crammed explosives into a set of books beggars belief.

The bombs are believed to be the work of a group of Italian-based anarchists who had earlier claimed responsibility for two small explosions in rubbish bins near the Commission' president's Bologna home.

In a letter to an Italian newspaper this self-styled Informal anarchist Federation said it was targeting the "repressive apparatus of control" of the European order.

Since then a succession of letter bombs have been sent to MEPs and leading EU figures, including the head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, and EC President Romano Prodi. Three of them exploded.

Mr Prodi, recipient of the first, narrowly escaped injury at his home as he opened a parcel addressed to his wife.
Mrs Titley suffered burns to her hand when opening the parcel addressed to her MEP husband in his constituency office.
A third addressed to a German MEP exploded without causing injury.

Is Mr Farage really saying the EU should collapse like a pack of cards because a handful of criminal delinquents have got their hands on some explosive and some postage stamps?

To insist, as Mr Farage does, that "the only way to ensure that this terror campaign ends is to give the people a say in their own future, not just with a referendum here but with similar polls across the EU" is a ludicrous response to terrorism.

What's the UKIP slogan for this year's European Parliament elections? Vote for us, we understand letter bombers?

Mr Farage has done neither himself nor his party any favours.

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posted by Martin |1:26 PM