News Friday that the UK Independence Party - the right wing anti-EU party that lies somewhere between the Tea Party and the Klu Klux Klan - have lost three candidates due to stand in the General Election on May 7. One resigned the party, the other two (one of who is a sitting Member of the European Parliament) have been suspended by the party following "unfortunate events". UKIP has until April 9 at 4pm to nominate alternative candidates or resolve the problems.
STRIKE 1
The resignation is of the candidate for
Westmorland and Lonsdale in Cumbria, the county in the very North-East of England. The
local paper explains:
The Scotland-based surgeon said: "I have given my full resignation to the party because of issues happening in Scotland: open racism and sanctimonious bullying within the party. This sectarian racist filth in Scotland needs cleaning up. it is a great threat to the Eurosceptic cause and civil society."
Mr Stanley also cited 'the general level of motivation of MEP's in the North West and the handling of health issues' as further reasons behind his departure
Stanley also complained that UKIP was "not serious" about winning the seat. That perhaps is not surprising bearing in mind it is one of the safest Liberal Democrat seats. At the last general election in 2010 Tim Fallon received 60% of the votes with the Conservatives second with 36%. Both Labour and UKIP failed to reach the 5% point and lost their £500 deposits.
The reference to events in Scotland are to a UKIP MEP, David Coburn, who compared a Scottish government minister to a terrorist. (Coburn is an MEP for Scotland, the elections are for very large multi-member constituences using the De Hont method of proportional representation.) In a newspaper interview Coburn had referred to the minister as "Humza Yousaf, or as I call him, Abu Hamza". Abu Hamza is the terrorist convicted in the USA after being extradited from Britain. Coburn and UKIP leader Nigel Farage dismissed the remark as a joke however the Daily Mail reporter, Alan Roden, had a different view.
Earlier this week a UKIP spokesman denied the comparison had been made and said it was a "slip of the tongue" on Mr Coburn's part.
But Mr Roden said it was neither a misunderstanding or "a joke".
Speaking on BBC Scotland's Scotland 2015 programme on Monday, he said: "David, unsolicited, named Humza Yousaf and used this phrase. It was not banter in a pub, even though it was a chat between a journalist and a politician. It's very serious indeed."
STRIKE 2
UKIP's candidate in
Scunthorpe, Stephen Howd, was suspended from the party
while the Bar Association investigates a complaint about him. (The Bar Association is the professional body for barristers, i.e. lawyers specializing in court work).
In a statement, Mr Howd, a barrister, said: "Allegations of harassment have been made against me. The allegations are contested.
"They are now the subject of tribunal proceedings and, as such, the matter is sub judice and it would not be appropriate for me to make any further comment."
A spokesman for the barristers' regulator, the Bar Standards Board (BSB), said: "We can confirm that a complaint has been received about Mr Howd and that misconduct charges have been served in relation to this. We cannot comment further at this point."
Another example of the "sanctimonious bullying within the party" that Jonathan Stanley complained about?
STRIKE 3
The most serious loss is the suspension of MEP and prospective candidate at the General Election for
Folkestone and Hythe on the English SE coast, Janice Atkinson. On Friday morning Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper splashed a story about her chief of staff trying to get a hotel to give a false invoice
so she could claim excessive amount of expenses from the European Union.
The Sun filmed Christine Hewitt, Ms Atkinson’s chief of staff, asking a restaurant manager for an invoice for a party in Margate that cost £950. She asked for a higher sum and eventually was given an invoice for £3,150.
“The idea is we overcharge them slightly because that’s the way of repatriating [the money],” Ms Hewitt allegedly said. The restaurant manager agreed to take part to enable video footage to be obtained, The Sun said.
Legal experts told The Sun the claim could be viewed as a criminal fraud and should prompt a police investigation. European laws on expenses and party funding may also have been broken.
You might say the Sun's support of the Conservative Party has a lot to do with their exposure of this UKIP candidate bearing in mind an opinion poll for the Mail on Sunday last year showed UKIP support at 32.9%, second behind the sitting Conservative on 36.4%. The South-East coastal fringe of England is one of UKIP's strong areas. You might say that, I couldn't possibly comment!
Atkinson seems to fit the Coburn model of a UKIP MEP. Last year she was in trouble for making racist statements about a supporter:
South East MEP Janice Atkinson described Fa Munday, a UKIP-supporting mobile food seller in Ramsgate, Kent, as a "ting tong from somewhere".
Her comments were recorded by BBC South East Today following an interview. Vincent Munday said it was outrageous, rude and offensive and he and his wife would withdraw their UKIP membership. Ms Atkinson has issued an apology.
The MEP said: "I deeply regret the words I used and am incredibly sorry. It was poor judgement and naivety on my part rather than words spoken with any malice.
Mr Munday explained to the BBC that "ting tong" in Thai meant somebody was mad. Atkinson later tried to appeal to the couple to tone down their criticism of her. Party claims that they had accepted an apology were refuted by them.
Atkinson’s apologies appear to have been as convincing as a Christmas card from the Islamic State, as Mr Munday issued a further statement today claiming that Atkinson had called him Instead of apologising, spent most of the call arrograntly telling him about the damage they were doing to the party and party leader, Nigel Farage.
He went on to explain that Nigel Farage visited him at his house in what seemed like a damage limitation exercise. Mr Munday finished his statement by declaring Atkinson a racist.
He said, “In my opinion, Janice Atkinson has shown her true colours. I think she has her own interests at heart, she is an arrogant racist who has been caught out and I strongly believe she deserves to be ejected from the party because it is very unlikely that her arrogance would allow her to leave of her own volition”
Prescient words! 2014 was a bit of an "
annus horribilis" for Ms Atkinson. During the European Election campaign
she had been caught telling a group of Green Party supporters to "fuck off", calling one fat. Despite getting over £79,000 a year as an MEP (plus expenses), she was take to task for
non-payment of child support for her children who are looked after by her ex-husband, somewhat unfortunate for somebody who wrote an
opinion piece in the Express in 2013 attacking "feckless families" living off others. The
Independent expanded:
“While it is a bit of a struggle, there is no support whatsoever from this woman,” her ex-husband, Steve Small, who has custody over the two children, said.
“She needs exposing for the type of person she is. It might sound like an estranged ex-husband but she has gone too far.”
Ukip’s manifesto on welfare promises voters that it would “ensure there is an initial presumption of 50/50 shared parenting in child custody matters and grandparents will be given visitation rights”.
According to the documents obtained by the broadcaster, Atkinson has rarely completed her support payments.
UKIP has a long history of "interesting" uses of
expenses its MEPs receive from the European Parliament while at the same time decrying the institution. Nigel Farage, its leader, has been an MEP since 1999 and was entitled to an allowance to report on his work to his constituents. Unfortunately the rules were somewhat loosely phrased so Farage used the funds to allegedly fund the party.
In 2009:
Farage was asked by former Europe minister Denis MacShane what he had received in non-salary expenses and allowances since becoming an MEP in 1999.
"It is a vast sum," Farage said. "I don't know what the total amount is but - oh lor - it must be pushing £2 million." Taken aback, MacShane then joked: "Is it too late to become an MEP?"
Farage insisted that he had not "pocketed" the money but had used the "very large sum of European taxpayers' money" to help promote Ukip's message that the UK should get out of the EU.
When asked later by the Observer to justify how he could claim so much while running a campaign attacking Westminster MPs for their extravagance, Farage was unapologetic, saying that, while MEPs were "very expensive", he was entirely happy that the money had been used for the best of causes."
Last year he appeared on a BBC comedy panel show "Have I got News for You" which exposed some of his "family values" (link to story and video)
Nigel Farage visibly squirmed last night, as he was quizzed about his expenses and alleged mistress on Have I Got News For You?
Farage was questioned by host Stephen Mangan and team captain Ian Hislop over the £2m he claimed in expenses as a member of the European Parliament in 2009, on top of his £64,000 a year salary.
He was also grilled on claims of an affair with a his press secretary, Annabelle Fuller.
The affair, which Farage denies, would mean both his alleged former mistress and his wife Kirsten Mehr, who works as his assistant, would have taxpayer funded salaries.
Mangan quipped that Farage was an "equal opportunities employer."
Farage had claimed expenses for an office despite being given the building rent free by a supporter, the subject of an investigation by the EUP's anti-fraud office.
Link to report on a Times article which is itself behind a pay wall.
The Times today uses the news that Nigel Farage is to be investigated by the EU’s anti-fraud office OLAF, following a complaint from an ex-Ukip official that £60,000 of EU allowances paid into his personal bank account have gone “missing”, to attack the “fraudulent prospectus” that he is “the politician who is not a politician”.
The chief allegation is that:
"The Ukip leader has received £15,500 a year from the EU since at least 2009 to pay for the upkeep of his constituency office, a small converted grain store near Bognor Regis, according to transparency reports filed on the party’s website.
However, the grain store was given rent-free to Mr Farage by Ukip supporters 15 years ago. Utilities and other non-rental costs amount to no more than £3,000 a year, according to the former office manager, leaving about £12,000 a year unexplained."
He was also criticized for continuing to pay into a now closed pension scheme for MEPs where there was considerable subsidy from the taxpayer.
In some respects the reports today are more interesting in the effect it will have on the General Election. UKIP is widely seen as one of the possible spoilers. It draws most of its support from the demographics that support the Conservative Party so may have an effect in seats where the Labour party is close behind. The indications of the sources of these reports is that the Murdoch press will not be behind them as they were implicitly at last year's European Parliament elections. Instead they will support the Conservatives (although there is a possibility the Sun may support Labour with Murdoch "hedging his bets" on the outcome).