UKIP's Cage

UKIP have rejected an offer to side with the BNP in the next Euro-elections.

Well, of course they have. Even if you think that UKIP is a bunch of fruit loops and assorted loonies, they aren't dumb enough to side with the BNP. To do so would be the equivalent of electoral leprosy - no-one with half a brain would go near UKIP, and the party would die a slow death on the sidelines of British Politics. Plus, siding with the BNP is just wrong; and whilst I don't agree with a lot of what UKIP says, I still think that the leadership are a way away from being the nasty little racist fucks of the BNP.

But the very fact that they have to clarify that they are not siding with the BNP neatly sums up the problem UKIP has. I do believe the leadership of UKIP has a lot going for it; however, it is not representative of the party. I see a lot of UKIP as being the extremist arm of the Tories; those members of the blue-rinse brigade who were just a little too xenophobic for the rump of the Tory party that was decimated at the 1997 election. This is why UKIP has to turn down unity offers from the BNP; because the BNP suspects that at least some of the UKIP membership has some sympathy with the racism of the BNP.

Which is why UKIP will never be a major player in British politics. As well as fighting the suspicion that they are a single issue party, they also need to constantly fight the accusations that they are closet racists. And that is just too much for a minor party; and as such UKIP is unlikely to go anywhere, except towards dwindling electoral success and political obscurity in the short to medium term.

For Euro-scpetic Libertarians, there is an alternative. For the mildly xenophonbic Little Englander Tories, there is an alternative as well, if you can stomach the admission fee for joining the BNP. But ultimately UKIP is not so much a dead party as a stillborn party. It was never going anywhere anyway.