IF SOME British newspapers are to be believed, Nigel Farage is on the back foot. Having been handed an opportunity to stand for Parliament, at a forthcoming by-election in Newark, the leader of the insurgent UK Independence Party (UKIP) declared on April 30th that, after some consideration, he would pass. In an explosion of wishful thinking some commentators declared him “frit”. This was not Mr Farage’s only inconvenience. In the run-up to this month’s European Parliament elections, his Eurosceptic party has been subject to increasingly embarrassing media scrutiny of its donors and representatives. On April 30th it emerged that one of its main donors, Demetri Marchessini, had aired a number of offensive views—including that women could not be raped in a marriage and that love was impossible between gay men.

This followed revelations that a UKIP local election candidate for Enfield, William Henwood, had invited Lenny Henry, a black comedian, to emigrate to a “black country”. And that, in turn, came after potentially more damaging allegations against Mr Farage himself.

Newspaper reports alleged that there were irregularities in the expenses he had claimed as a member of the European Parliament (MEP); Mr Farage denied this. It was also noted that he had once railed against MEPs who employ their wives for administrative work, yet now he does so himself. And his wife is German, which might seem to run contrary to Mr Farage’s invectives against employing foreign workers. When Mr Farage countered that he could not find anyone else to work as his secretary, he was inundated by job applications.

Yet UKIP’s advance in the opinion polls has continued relentlessly. According to the latest by ComRes, it should come top in the European Parliament elections, with 38% of the vote. In two English regions—the East and West Midlands—it is polling more than 50%. This is truly remarkable for a party with no MPs, a threadbare national organisation and, in Mr Farage, only one well-recognised politician. It suggests its many scandals are not damaging the party remotely.

The main reason for that is, of course, that hardly any Britons know or care about the European Parliament. A vote for UKIP is a vote for Euroscepticism and protest against the bogey of greedy and unaccountable bureaucrats, at home and abroad. If some UKIP candidates seem unfit for purpose, so be it—sending a bunch of rogues to the EU Parliament is what many British voters think it deserves.

A late swing towards the populist party, which is expected, would almost certainly deliver it victory in the election, beating Labour into second place, followed by the Conservatives. The reviled Liberal Democrats will be battling the Greens for fourth place.

Yet national politics is a different matter, which is why Mr Farage—though not remotely on the back foot—is probably right not to stand in Newark. On the face of it, the by-election presented him with an ideal opportunity to secure a first foot-hold in Westminster. It was triggered by the resignation of the Tory incumbent, Philip Mercer, after he was found to have tabled questions in the House of Commons after receiving financial inducements.

Such misbehaviour in Parliament has already proved a significant recruiting-sergeant for UKIP; the by-election will be held shortly after the party’s expected European electoral triumph. Yet Mr Mercer’s majority of 16,000 might still prove too much for UKIP to surmount in a constituency where it currently has little hold.

Defeat for Mr Farage would instead have handed an easy propaganda coup for the put-upon Tories—who have not successfully defended a by-election while in office for a quarter of a century. So Mr Farage was not being frit; just canny.

(Photo credit: AFP)