The Last Refuges Of A Real Scoundrel

When Europhiles don patriotic clothes, it's really evidence of desperation. And none, it seems, are more desperate than the snappily-named Irish Europhiles of 'Generation Yes', personified here by one Sharon Waters.

Ms Waters is outraged - outraged I tell you! - at foreign intervention in the Irish referendum campaign. Her patriotic spirit is deeply offended.

"Generation YES are outr­aged at this intervention by foreign interests into this crucial debate on Ireland’s vital national interests."

What she is talking about, of course, is Nigel Farage's presence in Ireland, a small counterbalance to the steady stream of European politicians who are parading through the country issuing a mixture of threats and plautitudes. Dignitaries such as Lech Walesa, who seems to have totally forgotten the concepts which propelled him to prominence in the first place, and now even the newly reconfirmed Jose-Manuel Barroso as well (reconfirmed with the cooperation of the 'Eurosceptic' Tories, might I might I add).

But that's not 'outrageous foreign intervention' to Ms Waters. 'EU Money' (for which read British Taxpayers' Money) is pouring into the Yes campaign like a raging flood, but that is perfectly above board and acceptable.

What isn't acceptable is UKIP. Existing. At all. So Ms Waters launches into a breathless tirade of smears and outrageous lies to try and paint UKIP as barely short of the heirs to the Nazis. The most egregious passage is reproduced here:

"They seek to dismantle the Belfast Agreement (*1), reintroduce the death penalty (*2) and abolish social security (*3), they prevent disabled people from standing for election on their ticket (*4), and they also deny climate change (*5) and the Holocaust (*6)."

Where to start? Well with number one, I suppose. Now Nigel Farage's fierce antipathy to the Belfast Agreement is well known, in fact when I interviewed him for A Tangled Web a couple of years ago he referred to the Peace Process in general as 'loathsome'. But he is one person, and indeed is stepping down as Party Leader of UKIP.

The document referred to by Ms Waters can be downloaded here (my father was actually part of the Constitutional Policy Group which drafted it, by coincidence). It doesn't mention the Belfast Agreement at all. Not once. So Item One can be quite simply referred to as a Lie, Big Fat.

So to number two. The Death Penalty. Firstly, I personally would be proud to be part of a Party actively stating that it will reintroduce the Death Penalty if elected. However, UKIP isn't doing so. It has merely pledged a national Referendum on the subject in response to . So even leaving aside the pros and cons of the issue itself, this is a best a misrepresentation of UKIP's position and at worst a Lie, Small.

So, to Number Three. Abolish Social Security? Well I dont have a copy of the 2004 Election Manifesto referred to, but here's what the General Election manifesto a year later has to say on Welfare reform:

"The objective will be to free as many people as possible from benefits by making the rules more transparent and cutting down on means-testing."

UKIP has never, ever called for the complete abolition of Social Security. Frankly I find statements like the above rather on the wishy-washy side, and they are certainly a million miles away from abolition!

Verdict on Number Three? Lie, Big Fat and faintly Ridiculous as well.

So, to number four. The issue of 'no disabled candidates', referring to the whipped up storm about Jack Biggs, a disabled man who was offered a paper candidacy due to his local UKIP Branch's inability to support a candidate unable to deliver leaflets but then turned out to have a rather different motive for his 'anger' when the emails between himself and the local UKIP Group were published...

"John,

I have been special Forces. I am a very good friend but a very bad enemy.

If you stay on track, ignoring me, but trying to unseat my Ukip minded daughter I will take the story for the Echo, ref you do not want disabled candidates for Ukip.

This is not a threat but a promise.

This anti disability bit by Ukip will also probably go National in the press."

Uh-huh. So the poor wittle disabled chap was never actually denied his chance to be a candidate, and was actually just trying to blackmail his local UKIP Branch into giving his Tory offspring a free run...but of course I'm sure Ms Waters was completely unaware of the real story. Or that UKIP has, for example, fielded blind candidates in the past. The female half of the couple who used to pretty much singlehandedly run the New Forest West branch next door was in a wheelchair in fact, and stood as a candidate herself a while ago.

But let's not let the facts of a single incident that was actually an attempt at blackmail anyway get in the way of pretending that there is some kind of 'No Raspberry-Ripples' Policy in force within an enemy organisation. Verdict on Number Four: Lie, Big Fat.

Now, let's have fun with Number Five. Denying Climate Change - the heresy! The horror!

Well, once again whilst there is a very significant body within UKIP, including many of its representatives such as David Campbell-Bannerman (who had the dubious pleasure of being present when terror-supporter Caroline Lucas of the Greens uttered her most infamous statement yet), who believe that 'Global Warming is a myth' as he put it during the above-linked debate, once again Waters is confusing the opinions of members of a Party with Party Policy. UKIP as a political body does not 'deny climate change', voting at Conference to stay 'neutral' on the subject. Though I dearly wish they did, they don't.

Verdict on Number Five: A misrepresentation rather than an outright lie, but a forgviable one.

And so we turn to the greatest evidence of Waters' utter derangement, the smear of smears. The accusation that UKIP denies the Holocaust.

I was a UKIP member for a few years, a Constituency Chairman for two of those, and I'm still involved on the fringes. It has its fair share of kooks and nutters, to be sure, just like every Party. For example, one person I knew turned out to be a Truther and probably still isn't speaking to me after I verbally tore her a new one at a Cheese and Wine thingummy. But one thing I've never encountered there is any suggestion of anti-semitism. On the contrary, the local branches here seem to contain more than their fair share of Jewish members, in fact - including a good friend of mine who fought in the Sinai in 1967.

So can there be any basis at all for such an outrageous statement? Who is the 'Alistair McConnachie' mentioned by Waters? Well, the waste of space in question was an officer in UKIP Scotland in 2000 before showing himself to be a disciple of the revolting Fred Leuchter, a man who was the subject of a banning order from the UK a very long time before Geert Wilders, Michael Savage or any bearded Islamic crazy. Needless to say McConnachie wasn't an officer in UKIP Scotland for very long afterwards, and now rather amusingly runs his own minor Party - and you guessed it, he's now a Greenie in charge of 'Independent Green Voice' (no Party website, sadly).

So nine years ago a single nutball reveals his moonbattery and gets booted out of UKIP - and from that Waters extrapolates that UKIP - the Party - denies the Holocaust. Such a smear is so utterly vile that words cannot suffice to describe how much I'd like to punch this woman in the face, then tar and feather her before marching her through the streets of Dublin wearing a placard saying 'The Holocaust Is Not A Subject To Use For Cheap Political Gain'. Granted people are unlikely to see the small writing required, but it'd be worth it anyway.

Verdict on Number Six: I hope the bitch catches a highly amusing skin disease. Minimum.

One of the English language's most ill-used quotes is the one about patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel. In this case, faux patriotism and outrageous lies appear to be the only weapons the scoundrels of the Europhile movement have left.