Leadership matters. Nigel Farage knows that. Just the other day he said the Ukip wouldn’t be doing half as well had it not been for his leadership. So he knows that leaders light the way; set the tone. They create the brand, now more than ever, as we drift further towards a presidential form of stewardship.
Bear this in mind today as the Ukip leader trains his guns on the BBC for having the temerity to ask about the ridiculous frequency with which members of his party offend public decency. Here’s the roll call from recent weeks. Janice Atkinson in Folkestone and Hythe Commons was expelled over an expenses scandal. Jeremy Zeid in Hendon stood down having suggested that Israel kidnap Barack Obama. David Coburn, the party’s sole Scottish MEP, compared SNP politician Humza Yousaf to terrorist Abu Hamza. A shout out to Christopher Gillibrand, the Ukpian from Dwyfor Meirionnydd recently outed as a past official of the extreme-right Traditional Britain Group.
Let’s go back a bit, but not too far, to Andre Lampitt, past star of a Ukip TV ad who was later outed for dismissing Ed Miliband as “a Pole”, asserting that Enoch Powell was right, Islam was satanic and that Africans should be left to “kill themselves”. David Silvester, the councillor who attributed the winter floods to gay marriage. William Henwood who advised Lenny Henry to emigrate to “a black country”. And Nigel’s MEP colleague Gerard Batten, who called for British Muslims to sign a special code of conduct promising not to engage in violent jihad.
Farage says the media only focuses on his problem children, ignoring the transgressions of those from other parties, and thus revealing bias. Really? Tell that to the media that defenestrated Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne. Farage seems reluctant to accept that the other parties are mass membership parties while his is not, so if they are bothered by loons and weirdos, that’s hardly surprising. He told the Today programme that misbehaving members of the major parties have been sent to jail. A strange diversion tactic. Within recent memory, corrupt politicians once welcomed within Ukip have been jailed too.
Farage seems reluctant to accept that he sets the tone. That he, with his style of dog-whistle, saloon bar politics, advertises the brand. That people, hearing what he says and how he behaves, resolve that his project is something they want to be part of. What he says and who is attracted are inextricably linked. If his party has too many pests, he caused the infestation.
There is another point he might care to ponder today. He tours the country insisting that Ukip is not like the other parties. That Westminster is a cartel and neither he nor his party are part of it. But on the issue of misbehaviour, his argument is that Ukip is just like any other party and should be treated as they are, held to the same standard. That isn’t much of a sales pitch; vote for us – we’re as dodgy as the rest.
