Requiem for UKIP

Vernon Coleman





Over the last few years I've done whatever I could to help UKIP. I haven't always agreed with all their policies, of course. For example, I think that the Union is pretty well stuffed (Scottish nationalists aren't going to shut up) and we should now be battening down the hatches and preparing for a last ditch effort to protect England. And I don't think that UKIP agrees with my view that we need to dump the laughably one-sided `special relationship' with the USA.

But UKIP has for some time been the only mainstream political party which has steadfastly opposed the European Union. Last autumn I spoke at their annual conference in Telford and although I'm not a member of UKIP I thought we had a good enough understanding. I thought we shared a loathing of the European Union and that's a pretty good basis for a political relationship.

However, my faith in UKIP has now been shattered. And I've found myself questioning its very purpose.

I write books. It's what I do for a living. And over the years I've written half a dozen volumes on politics. Naturally, since I don't toe the Government line on the European Union (or, indeed, anything else) my books are pretty widely (and efficiently) banned. For example, most national newspapers refuse to take advertisements for them, and the BBC would shut and bolt their doors if they saw me heading towards one of their studios.

Promotional material for my books has, however, appeared several times in UKIP's magazine Independence. I've paid UKIP thousands of pounds for the privilege of offering my books to their members. And, I'm pleased to say, many UKIP members have bought my books. It has been mutually beneficial. I have received scores of requests to speak at UKIP meetings. (Indeed, ironically, I received an invitation to be the keynote speaker at a UKIP conference just days after I had been told that my books attacking the EU weren't suitable for advertising to UKIP members.)

And then, suddenly, they refused to accept any more inserts advertising my books.

At first they refused to accept inserts for a book of mine called Living In A Fascist Country.

I could understand that.

Living In A Fascist Country doesn't pull any punches. And I'm pretty rude about several Governments (including Britain's and America's.) I was told that one or two UKIP members had complained.

So I suggested that they rerun inserts promoting my books England Our England and The Truth They Won't Tell You (And Don't Want You To Know) About The EU. As far as I know no UKIP members had complained about these books.

But, to my astonishment, they refused to accept inserts advertising those books too.

On 13th July, my office received an e-mail from Adrian Lithgow of UKIP saying: `I regret that I have instructions for the Party chairman (Dr John Whittaker) not to carry Vernon Coleman's inserts.'

This seemed very odd.

I tried to find out why. I faxed Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader.

But no one would tell me why my books had suddenly become unsuitable for UKIP members.

And so I sent a letter to the several thousand UKIP members who had already bought my books. I pointed out that the UKIP magazine Independence had refused to accept advertisements for my books attacking the European Union and I explained that I had no idea why my books attacking the EU and the British Government were no longer considered `acceptable'.

I added that books really do change the world, reminded readers that a few years ago even the CIA admitted that books are the most powerful of all propaganda tools, and ended by hoping that readers would continue to work with me in the battle against the EU and the bureaucrats of Brussels.

When the letters started dropping on doormats, and angry readers and UKIP members started to contact UKIP to complain - and to ask what was going on - the organisation suddenly woke up. Faced with many members threatening to rip up their membership cards, UKIP worked overtime finding explanations for what had happened.

And over the next few days I heard a variety of different reasons for the ban. It was, for example, claimed that UKIP had decided not to take outside inserts at all. It was alleged that I hadn't paid for the inserts (not true). It was claimed that they had refused inserts for my anti-EU books because I'm not a UKIP member. And it was argued that promotional material for my books had been banned because my attacks on Tony Blair were considered too `vitriolic'. One reader had apparently pulled the race card and suggested that daring to criticise Israel's military policies meant that I was anti-Semitic. (I do get fed up of this absurd and illogically abusive argument.)

The most popular excuse seemed to be that my book Rogue Nation contains an attack on America and the war against Iraq. It was claimed that UKIP had rejected inserts because this book did not fit comfortably with UKIP's policy towards America.

This excuse confused me because I have never asked UKIP to accept inserts for Rogue Nation!

I had asked them to accept inserts for my books attacking the EU. And those were the books which they no longer considered acceptable.

The most recent excuse from UKIP has come from the party chairman John Whittaker. (The man who had, allegedly, decided that inserts for my books should be banned in the first place.)

On the 3rd August, Whittaker wrote to a UKIP member stating that the inserts for my book were considered `too prominent' and alleging that `they dominate our own magazine'.

Huh?

Is Whittaker seriously now suggesting that my inserts (the same ones that have been run before) have suddenly become so prominent (they're the same size that they've always been - and, indeed, they haven't altered at all) that they `dominate' UKIP's magazine?

(My first thought was that if a single sheet of paper, printed black on white, and promoting a book dominates their magazine, UKIP might want to look at the magazine they're producing.)

Whittaker claims that it is not true that UKIP has banned my books attacking the EU. He now says that although UKIP will not accept the inserts promoting my books they will allow me to take out an advertisement within the body of the magazine.

I can't keep up. I am very confused, quite disappointed and extremely worried by UKIP's attitude. I can't help feeling that this latest excuse is merely an attempt to escape from an increasingly embarrassing decision.

The bottom line is that I no longer trust UKIP. I will certainly not work with them again. And I won't be accepting their generous offer to allow me to advertise my books in their magazine.

The fact is that this isn't about books or advertisements any more. It is about something far more fundamental. It's about the integrity and purpose of a political party which claims to be offering British voters a solid, rational, patriotic alternative to the self-serving nonsense being offered by the three main parties.

When I first heard that adverts for my books had been `banned' I couldn't help wondering if UKIP was changing its policy on the EU. Maybe, I thought, they were worried that I was too rude about EU bureaucrats. Maybe they regard my books as being too sternly critical of the EU and the British Government.

And deep down that fear remains.

Try as I might I simply cannot understand John Whittaker's claim that my inserts were banned because someone at UKIP has realised that the adverts `dominate' UKIP's own magazine. It's a flattering thought that our bits of paper overpower UKIP's own policy statements. (The writer of the inserts, Donna Davidson, is so delighted by this uninvited tribute that I think I'm going to have to give her a pay rise.)

But I still have that niggling thought that if scores of UKIP members hadn't complained about the ban, I might never have received any sort of explanation.

I'm left with an annoying little feeling that simply won't go away: isn't it just possible that my first fear was correct, and that UKIP tried to ban adverts for my anti-EU books because it finds my uncompromising anti-EU message a little strong for its tastes these days?

Is it just possible that UKIP's leaders, the MEPs sitting in Brussels, have gone native?

And that's where everything gets really, really worrying. Deep down I have always thought there is something distinctly strange and unhealthy about UKIP having MEPs who are getting big salaries and big chunks of expenses from the EU (which UKIP wants to see disbanded). I know this is something UKIP members have discussed. But it is curious.

Is it conceivably possible that any of these MEPs might now have a more satisfactory lifestyle than they did before they became MEPs? Do these UKIP MEPs get EU pensions? Will they live out their retirement years on money from an organisation they wanted to destroy?

Just asking the questions. I have no knowledge of the answers. For all I know UKIP's MEPs might have all given up much better jobs and much more exciting lifestyles.

But are there no others who might just harbour a guilty, secret thought: `Is it possible that any of the UKIP MEPs might have gone `native'? Is it possible that they might, consciously or unconsciously, have an interest in the EU surviving?'

I'm sure these nagging worries are entirely unfounded.

But now that I've got them in my head they won't go away.

Why did UKIP refuse to accept promotional inserts for my anti-EU books? The organisation would have been well paid.

Was it really because Donna Davidson's thin, black and white inserts are so powerful that they overpower the UKIP magazine? (And remember it took them some time to come up with this explanation.)

Or could there possibly be a more sinister explanation?

I honestly don't know.

But I've lost faith in UKIP.

I won't be speaking at any more UKIP conferences and I won't be recommending UKIP to my readers in future.

I believe that the battle for England and against the EU has to be fought without compromise. It has to be fought with unbridled passion. And if that means upsetting the Government and the bureaucrats then that's a price I'm quite prepared to pay.

My fear is that it may no longer be a price that UKIP is prepared to pay.


Copyright Vernon Coleman 8th August 2007

Vernon Coleman is the author of England Our England, Saving England and The Truth They Won't Tell You (And Don't Want You To Know) About The EU. Ads for these books have been banned by just about everyone. All these books are, however, for sale from the shop on www.vernoncoleman.com and from all honest bookshops everywhere.


Copyright Vernon Coleman 2007 Home