UKIP: absolute nutters in the shit

Who would have thought this man's party would ever have money problems?

UKIP, the acceptable face of far right politics in the UK, are possibly facing a financial disaster next month.

July is likely to see the judgement of the Supreme Court over the party’s refusal to forfeit over £350,000 of illegal donations. The Electoral Commission says it knows about at least 67 instances of the UKIP breaking the law on donations. Under electoral law, if a party is given over £200 it has to check if the donor is on the electoral register. UKIP failed to do this, despite loads of warnings from the commission.

The party got £367, 697 from these incidents. Most of the money came from a retired bookie and owner of a bathrobe company, Alan Brown, who was not on the register when he gave them several separate donations. In magistrates court, UKIP was ordered to pay back only part of the amount, but the electoral commission has escalated things to the Supreme Court in an attempt to get the full amount forfeited, in which case it would go to the treasury.

As well as this money itself, if UKIP loses the case then they would face millions in legal bills. It could effectively bankrupt the party.

Should we be happy about this? Absolutely we should, because UKIP are the hidden threat we face from the organised far right. Leftfield has reported before on UKIP as a potential seed from which an important party of the radical right could become a major force in British politics. The model for this would be far right racist, anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who has just gained a big result in the Dutch general election.

Alan Brown hands over an illegal donation

Wilders is the darling of the English and Scottish Defence Leagues, who admire him for his stances such as banning the hijab from all public institutions, calling for the Koran to be banned whilst comparing it to ‘Mein Kampf’, and for the construction of prison camps for Muslims in the Netherlands.

Alan Lake, the shady businessman who bankrolled the rise of the EDL, has said publicly that he’s backing away from his street army of football casuals to focus on finding them a voice in the mainstream political process. He’s doing that by working with UKIP.

UKIP itself is seen by many as a single issue party: keep the pound, withdraw from the EU. But a quick glance at their website reveals a broader agenda. Their top news item when I checked was “Burka ruling out of touch“, condemning a decision by the Council of Europe to oppose restrictive laws on what women can and can’t wear in Belgium, France and Italy.

Then there’s the story “Immigrants continue to flood rural areas” which declares:

“England’s picture-postcard rural towns are being overrun by East European immigrants, according to new figures based on National Insurance applications.”

And of course, let’s not forget their groundbreaking commentary on the key issues with regards to transport. There’s a statement on there from their transport spokesman. Is he talking about bus services? Rocketing fares? The need to expand the rail network?

Brit sports cars hit by EU rules

Tuesday, 22nd June 2010

Mike Nattrass MEP UKIP’s transport spokesman has reacted angrily to the news that EU regulations will mean that the latest special versions of the Lotus Elise and Exiges will be unavailable in the UK.

“After December 2010 Lotus can only export the 1.8 models outside of the EU. This because of the decree of a foreign power.” he said.

The reason for this is that EU regulations governing vehichle emmissions [sic] block the top of the range cars.

This last one highlights the strong support of UKIP for the denial of science and evidence when it comes to the global climate. UKIP are firm deniers of the existence of man made climate change, believing instead in a vast conspiracy of scientists and governments to con us all. Of course, that’s not the only conspiracy they believe in.

But for just how far down the insane rabbit hole UKIP are willing to go, you need to look into their links with the conspiracy based far right. Earlier this month, they hosted a conference at the European Parliament featuring leading Russian conspiracy theorist Daniel Estulin, and an MEP convicted of carrying out a racist attempted murder.

Attempted murderer: Mario borghezio

Mario Borghezio is an Italian MEP for the Lega Nord party, which combines demands for autonomy of the northern part of Italy with neo-fascism and extreme anti-immigrant xenophobia. In 2005 he was found guilty of arson after, as part of a vigilante raid, he set fire to pallets that immigrants were sleeping on under a bridge in Turin. Although he was sentenced to two months in jail, this converted into a fine of a mere 3000 Euros.

The conference was organised to discuss the Bilderberg group, a shadowy organisation of world leaders that meet every year to discuss policy on a global level with absolutely no media allowed to document what is said. Let’s be clear: the Bilderberg group is a bad thing. It allows the top CEOs and company directors to get together with the capitalist politicians that serve their interests and talk freely without fear of being quoted about what they’d like to do.

But for right wingers like Borghezio, and UKIP, this means that it must be the heart of some satanic world elite determined to dominate us all. What’s missing from their understanding is that the policies discussed at Bilderberg are driven by the much deeper processes of capitalism. If it wasn’t the elite that met at Bilderberg it would be a different elite group of people driving them. And if the Bilderberg conference didn’t exist, these same people would find another way to network. The point is that systemic change is needed if we’re going to deal with real problems like poverty, inequality, war and, yes, climate change.

For a better understanding of the Bilderberg group and the people obsessed with it, I recommend Jon Ronson’s documentary ‘The Secret Rulers of the World,’ which includes an episode on Bilderberg.

UKIP also like to talk about the need for Britain to loosen gun laws, so that we can live in a bullet ridden madhouse like the US. This is something they’ve taken from American conspiracy chums like Alex Jones, who’s show UKIP former leader Nigel Farrage has appeared on.

The conference shouldn’t surprise us, given that SSY’s old pal Kris Seunarine, the UKIP candidate for Glenrothes who came here to troll the comments for a while, links to Hollie Greig material on his blog. As many readers will know, and has already been discussed here, the Hollie Greig issue is a disgusting example of conspiracy theorists exploiting the abuse of a young woman to further their agenda of proving an evil paedophile elite runs the justice system. The conspiracy isn’t a masonic plot against justice, it’s the tragically commonplace and regular covering up of the abuse of women and girls by men, many of whom are in positions of power.

But then, a proper understanding of patriarchy and sexism is not to be expected from a party that has members like Godfrey Bloom MEP. Bloom is notorious for comments like “women don’t clean behind the fridge enough . . . I would represent Yorkshire women who always have dinner on the table when you come home.” He also declared:

“The more rights you have [for women] it is actually a bar on their employment. No self-respecting small business man with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age. That isn’t politically correct is it? But it is a fact of life; I know because I’m a businessman.”

He also admitted to visiting brothels in Hong Kong, and said that the majority of prostitutes were not exploited: “In short, most girls do it because they want to,” he wrote.

Sexist and abuser Godfrey Bloom appearing on the Alex Jones show

After a visit from female students at Cambridge to Boom in the European Parliament, he was accused of sexual harassment and making a torrent of misogynist remarks. The students, who had in fact been there to show SUPPORT for Boom, were shocked by his behaviour. One student wrote that Bloom touched her leg, and that:

“Mr Bloom asked a colleague ‘Isn’t she the most delicious bimbette? Absolutely thick, but good tits’. Of the businesswoman who he had invited to share the platform at the next day’s press conference, Mr Bloom had only four words: ‘big tits, very feisty’.”

Bloom denied the touching but not the comments.

The face of the matter is, we could spend all day pointing out the racism and sexism of UKIP, the question is, what do we do about it? IMHO it shows the need for us to broaden the scope of what we regard as anti-fascist activity.

Significantly, the first two of the UKIP news stories above linked back to articles on the Daily Express website. The role of the right wing press in helping to spread and give power to far right ideas is key in the UK, and is decisive in getting extreme policies on issues like immigration adopted beyond the margins by “mainstream” political parties of government.

The Express owner Richard Desmond famously made his fortune in the pornography business, which allowed him to go on to build up his Northern and Shell empire. He recently declared himself to have “so much money it’s ridiculous,” before going on to say he might make a bid for ITV or Channel 5. Of course, he’s the owner of just one of the far right newspapers that are read regularly by millions of the UK, competing against the likes of The Sun and The Daily Mail.

For organisations like SSY or the Scottish Anti Fascist Alliance, we need to broaden our understanding of the threat we face from far right, extreme ideas. They have a resonance in the UK far beyond just the BNP or the EDL, reaching into mainstream politics, the media and parties that are not conventionally regarded as extreme like UKIP. Our strategy against these ideas needs to take this into account.