What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

All over the world, racists are failing.

In France they had to rebrand. In Germany they're losing to the Greens. In the USA they've dropped diplomacy to rage-tweet.

Far Right speaking tours in Australia are poorly attended, cancelled, rescheduled and cancelled again. 'Stars' of a website which might better be called Reitbark are broke, indebted, and unwelcome.

And in the UK, the all-white Brexit they hoped for with such fervour has failed to materialise. Faced with the immovable demands of business, the NHS and global trade in the 21st century, sensible people would attempt to compromise and dial down allegations of racism.

UKIP voted to ignore the racists in its ranks.

The crucial word is 'vote'. If ever there were an explanation of why democracy isn't perfect, it's the never-ending ability of idiots to make their own situation worse.

After their current leader appointed an ex-BNP agitator with a long criminal record to be his 'advisor' on rape gangs, the ruling body refused to back a vote of no confidence in the man who brought a racist into their ranks. They seemed unsure that it was wrong.

Without the confidence to hold a vote about whether it wanted to look this bad, UKIP was left muttering it "does not endorse the appointment", which is a bit like Pontius Pilate saying he doesn't endorse crucifixion. It's still happening.

UKIP spent decades in the wilderness before winning enough votes in 2014 to be officially designated a 'major political party'. A year later it drew 3.9m votes, its first MP, and was powerful enough to force a referendum on its mission to leave the European Union.

With Brexit hitting the rocks, little support for the exit agreement and Leavers and Remainers equally miserable about the future, a competent, intelligent party would thrive.

(Image: Getty/Rex)

There are two reasons UKIP has withered, along with all the other endeavours so popular with racists and with which the Western world has recently been infected.

The first is that its founding principle was a negative. Like a marriage entered into to stop two people being miserable, it could only hope to achieve a lack of something. Win or lose, it always had a finite life span.

UKIP has nothing to sell, no message to uplift, and no option but to find more things to reject. Things like common sense, decency, and self-awareness.

The second is that its members, supporters and followers are, to a man and woman, as thick as mince.

(Image: X90183)

Only people with an inability to think in straight lines would think what happens at the Hungarian border was more of an immediate issue than what happens at the Northern Irish one.

Only people who picked their nose for the past 30 years would think Brexit would make the tiniest change to what people wear on their heads.

And as a glance at the comments below this article will no doubt prove, only those immune to the demands of grammar and punctuation are able to communicate stupidity so much more clearly than their ideas.

(Image: Getty)

That was as true under Nigel Farage as it was under Diane James (survived 18 days), Paul Nuttall (electoral bloodbath), Henry Bolton (worrying girlfriend) and Gerard Batten (worrying friends in general).

Farage was the only one with élan - energy, style, enthusiasm. He brought in voters who weren't racist, but merely happened to agree with those who were. But he still lacked brains. In 2006 he vowed to make UKIP more than a single issue party, and thereafter spent all his time talking about one issue, with occasional diversions to explain his personal life.

James found the rigours of the job too much, Nuttall acted like an habitual liar, and Bolton spent his tenure defending a woman who made racist remarks about the Duchess of Sussex.

They all seemed like idiots, until Batten came along and decided to crow about the fact he's taking advice from a convicted fraudster, thug, and man so stupid that he almost derailed a rape trial.

A rape trial - and this is the really dumb bit - all of these idiots wanted the state to win.

(Image: PA)

But history has proven that racists only win when they pretend they're not. Its latest manifesto proved UKIP has stopped trying. This party hasn't just failed to distance itself from nasty elements, but its leader has actively sought out nastier ones, and now it can't even win an argument with itself.

It's got nothing left to do but choke on the semi-digested racism, dying in its own negativity while leaving the political stage - and the reality of Brexit - for everyone else to deal with.

In days of yore, when everyone was racist, some were clever enough to organise things. Now that racism is acceptable only to a few, there aren't enough with the wit to organise ornaments.

And if UKIP's leaders ever wonder why people stopped voting for them, that's why. It had no plan. It ceased representing the views of ordinary people not heeded by other parties, and started promoting the opinions of those barely heard by anyone. From being a party often accused of racism, it became one that is advised by it.

(Image: Newcastle Chronicle)

But UKIP is useful. It is proving that even middle-aged, I'm-not-racist-honest xenophobia has no brains and no hope.

And because it is too stupid even to manage its own decline, it's not dying quickly. We can watch its extended death throes, and the whole world sees racists fail, again, like they always do.

Perhaps one day they'll have failed often enough that even the thickest among us will realise racism has nothing to offer.