Express

April 30, 2014

THE surge in support for Ukip continues to gather momentum. Amid mounting public disillusion with the progressive ruling elite, Nigel Farage’s party is on the verge of causing one of the biggest upsets in politics since the Second World War.

An opinion poll at the weekend showed that 31 per cent of people are planning to vote Ukip in next month’s European elections, well ahead of both Labour and the Conservatives.

This dramatic rise in popularity is remarkable for a party without a single seat at Westminster. But Ukip’s growing appeal is a graphic indicator of widespread fury at the betrayal of our country by a narrow, self-serving political elite that has systematically undermined our national identity and allowed the EU to trash our democracy.

The further that Ukip advance the more rattled the political establishment becomes. A mood of hysteria and desperation has gripped the three main parties and large sections of the media as they try to halt Farage.

Rational argument has been replaced by a form of McCarthyism, policy debate by puerile insults. So we are told that Ukip’s campaign posters, spelling out the disastrous impact of uncontrolled immigration, are “racist”.

Similarly, a phoney storm is being generated by people dredging up online comments by even the most obscure Ukip members on social media sites. In this climate of witch hunting and guilt by association, any controversial remark or dodgy behaviour by a Ukip supporter is paraded as representative of the party as a whole.

But these negative, mud-slinging tactics have backfired spectacularly. The onslaught has only enhanced the rise of Ukip, as this weekend’s figures demonstrate. This is because most Britons see through all the synthetic indignation.

Throwing about accusations of “racism” has long been the nasty tactic used by progressives to enforce their twin ideologies of mass immigration and cultural diversity. The acceptance of these two creeds was never put to a democratic vote of the British people. Instead the establishment ruthlessly imposed them by bullying opponents into silence and presenting any alternative viewpoint as “offensive”.

That attitude was perfectly encapsulated by the notorious outburst from Gordon Brown during the 2010 general election when he branded Rochdale voter Gillian Duffy as “just a bigoted woman” for daring to voice her concern about uncontrolled immigration. However much of the public is fed up at this suppression of dissent.

Increasing numbers of electors now find it intolerable to be treated as racists simply for loving their country, or for being alarmed at the social revolution that has engulfed Britain over the last decade. The attempt to portray Ukip as socially unacceptable has only succeeded in reinforcing the potency of Farage’s message: that he wants to regain our liberty from the anti-British, pro-EU political class that holds the very concepts of free speech, nationhood and democracy in contempt.

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