Are Ukip a party of 'fascist nutters'

In the last Euro Election, 2004, Robert Kilroy-Silk was a large reason for UKIPs success. The media loved him, and he brought some wealthy backers that meant huge media coverage.

A few months after considerable electoral success; the TV presenter, Labour then UKIP politician dismissed some of his former colleagues in the UKIP as "bloody right-wing fascist nutters". Now when he said that he had just left the party, after failing to become its leader, so had some reason to dislike them. But this attack goes way beyond ordinary criticism.

Their election broadcast and adverts refer to Winston Churchill who said in 1946 in Zurich that: "We must build a kind of United States of Europe". If they had any knowledge of history they would be well aware that during the Second World War, Churchill sought a union of France and Britain for the duration of the war. And after the war he agreed that structures should be put in place to bring Europe closer together to avoid further conflict.

In WW2 the fascists stood against the rest of the world. On one side were Polish fighter pilots, French resistance, Gurkhas, thousands of Black and Asian people. Which side would UKIP have been on do you think?

Godfrey Bloom MEP said

Let me just say a little about the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA), which will guide us onto the target of how mistakes are made. The FSA in the United Kingdom has a rule book of half a million words. Nobody understands it – least of all the FSA.... Now it is going to be, it would appear, subsumed by some sort of EU overseer, consisting no doubt of ignorant bureaucrats, Scandinavian housewives, Bulgarian mafia and Romanian peg-makers.

UKIPwatch refer to them as a "party of 'racists, cranks and gadflys".

UKIP MEP Ashley Mote went to prison for benefit fraud; and that UKIP MEP Tom Wise is being prosecuted for money laundering. Even Nigel Farage has copped some serious flak after being caught admitting that he had taken £2m in expenses and couldn’t account for it. The eurosceptic Tory think-tank Open Europe has weighed in, including 6 U-kippers in its list of the 10 worst offending MEPs. Bloody hell, even the Sun is saying they’re a bunch of crooks.

Their Election Broadcast blames immigrants for traffic congestion and housing shortages; reminding many of extremism of the past.

2004 UKIP benefitted from some huge donations; most of the £1.2m - more than the Lib Dems received - came from Yorkshire businessman Paul Sykes' firm, which spent £715,000 on huge adverts.

Paul Sykes has since split from UKIP , The Yorkshire businessman, who contributed over half of Ukip's £2m fighting fund for the June 2004 European elections, said that the party had "blown it" by deciding to field candidates against Eurosceptic Tory MPs. So thats the end of that source of funds.

The other question is; what is the point of UKIP? They campaign on Britain leaving Europe, but despite huge numbers of votes and millions spend on advertising, this is no closer to happening. Even if they achieved the impossible and got 100% of the vote; would we leave the EU? No, they would still need to win seats in the Houses of Parliament. Have their 12 MEPs achieved anything, aside from getting on the gravy train.

There are other ways for people to express their desire for a vote for a referendum, including the Greens.