UKIPs BNP connection....

One of the interesting sidenotes to the news that Tory MP Derek Conway has been censured by the Standards and Privileges Committee for paying his son large amounts from his parliamentary assistance allowance for doing little to no work, is the source of the complaints alleging malpractice. The complaint against Mr Conway was brought by a Michael Barnbrook, who stood as the UKIP candidate against Conway in Old Bexley and Sidcup constituency at the 2005 election. Since then, however, Barnbrook has done as many a u-kipper before him and defected to the BNP. A great shame for UKIP high command who will probably think twice before trying to claim the credit for this one!

All of which has provoked this little exchange!

Homophobic Batten shoots straight from the lip

No one could ever accuse UKIP of not shooting from the lip. Their candidate for the London mayoral elections, the hapless Gerard Batten has promised to refuse funding for gay rights and ethnic minority groups. The hapless Gerard pledged that he would "cut all that rubbish" before then accusing Mayor Ken Livingstone of "cultural Marxism". UKIPwatcher is sure that Red Ken is quaking as we speak…

Having Mr Batten as candidate is a bit of a come-down for UKIP. In 2004 they were able to persuade millionaire boxing promoter Frank Maloney to stand for them. Without the media exposure brought to them by Kilroy, UKIP have to make do with a penniless bigot rather than a rich one. Fortunately, London's gay community need not fear the prospect of Mr Batten taking over city hall in May. UKIP polled 6% in the 2004 election and there's more chance of hell freezing over than this chump becoming Mayor.

UKIP NEC member receives death threat

The farce continues at UKIP. The Times carried news at the weekend that Delroy Young, the only black member of UKIP's national executive, had received a telephone death threat, during which several men threatened to kill him on the order of a senior UKIP official.

In the words of a UKIP insider: "This is causing the party hierarchy a huge amount of embarrassment", an impressive display of stating the blindingly obvious if ever there was one.

David Cameron famously described UKIP as a bunch of "fruitcakes and closet racists", causing u-kippers to froth with indignant rage. Faced with these allegations and Godfrey Bloom's choice attack on the Archbishop of York, perhaps they will admit their misjudgement.

UKIP suspends MEP Tom Wise again!

After what may seam like years of debating the future of UKIP MEP Tom Wise UKIP have once more decided to suspend him. UKIP seem to be dancing around in circles, this is now the UKIP MEP's second suspension. One would hope that this will be the final. How much more of this tom-foolery can we take?

UKIP has finally confirmed that Tom Wise has been suspended following years of speculation and allegations of financial irregularity and a gross abuse of the European Parliaments assistant's allowance. As has been well documented, Wise is alleged to have claimed £40,000 to pay his assistant. However the UKIP MEP was in fact channelling a large amount of this money into his own account. His assistant was only receiving £13,555 whilst Mr Wise spent some of the proceeds on a French car.

UKIP has admitted that the complaint panel that is assessing the case against Tom Wise have confirmed that 'there is a case to answer' and have thus suspended him until a 'hearing'.

This leaves us pondering what the disciplinary hearing will consist of and indeed who from UKIP will be on the panel. If he is indeed found guilty in this hearing will he be dismissed or will he be further suspended until UKIP can make up its mind on this matter?

All this begs a question, how many disciplinary hearings does a UKIP MEP need before he can be found guilty?

A grand old team to play for?

It’s been a fun-filled four years for those lucky 12 men elected for UKIP in 2004. The European Parliament did what the British public had long been dreaming of by helping Robert Kilroy Silk vanish form the media spotlight; poor old Ashley Mote got an extended holiday in jail; Tom Wise awaits his fate; and John Whittaker wielded his axe ruthlessly.

And if you have ever wished of joining this motley crew, then now’s your chance. The 2009 candidate selection process is under way, just don’t forget your cheque book.

Before you even get to the interview stage, so that's pretty much anyone who applies, you will be requied to pay a non-returnable deposit of £250.

Should you be lucky enough to be shortlisted you will get invited to the odd husting and, providing you do the business, and we have already mentioned some of those that did the business last time, you will become a UKIP candidate for the 2009 European elections. Well once you've coughed up another 800 quid.

You may well see some of that again but that depends on how many deposits UKIP manages to save. So potentially, you could end up paying over a grand to be quizzed by the UKIP faithful and then face humiliation at the polling booth. UKIPwatch is ruling itself out with immediate effect.

Anyone who's still interested should probably check these rules out and note that a CRB check is now mandatory.

Gorgeous Godfrey - UKIPs Bernard Manning??

Good to see that the Guardian have been picking up enlightening tips by listening to Godders' pod-casts. Personally, UKIPwatcher thinks that Godfrey wit and charm is wasted on politics. There's a real niche market out there for stupid, wilfully ignorant bigotry - perhaps Godfrey thinks he is the new Bernard Manning?

As for the material, such delightful vignettes as "Colonel Mercer put his cock in the custard" (when former Tory front-bencher Patrick Mercer made some casually racist remarks about black soldiers in the army) are hard to beat. However, Godfrey has now decided to make an enemy of Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York. In particular, Godfrey questions the Archbishop's claims that there are racist elements within the Church of England with his usual brand of pig ignorance and casual racism by rambling for a few minutes before concluding - "I would have thought that the fact he was made archbishop with a face as black as Newgate's knocker would belie that". Astonishing….

Of course, Godfrey is a pompous attention seeker who obviously loves the sound of his own voice (why else have a podcast??) and thinks he is funny. He also has no credibility to lose (never had any in the first place) and will be standing down in 2009. The man expected to be UKIPs No 1 candidate in Yorkshire is Jonathan Arnott who, by chance, works as Godders' "political advisor". Perhaps Mr Arnott could reveal whether he writes Godfrey's 'gags' for him?

Unwelcome Xmas gift for Cashley Mote

Scandal ridden former U-kipper Ashley Mote had an unwelcome Christmas present, when the Court of Appeal rejected his appeal against his conviction for multiple benefit fraud. Mote has also been ordered to pay back the £67,000 he defrauded from the public purse.

However, Cashley was at pains to insist that “never ever would I seek to defraud the public purse” adding that “ going to the benefits office…was an agonising acknowledgement of at least temporary defeat” and “my only purpose was to get myself off benefit, not to sponge off the state”. No Ashley, you stole nearly £70k of taxpayers’ money.

Hopefully this will be the end of this nonsense and Mote will admit culpibility and stop wasting everybody’s time. This may be wishful thinking since Mote has vowed to “mount a further appeal” in the future.

Whittaker shocked that he can’t sack workers if they have strokes….

UKIP faced yet another court case and yet another defeat just before Christmas, with UKIP party chairman John Whittaker MEP shocked to discover that he can’t keep Victorian employment practices in the 21st century.

Hilary Harris, who ran Mr Whittaker’s constituency office from 2004 to early 2007, brought a case of constructive dismissal after being pressurised to return to work and having her job advertised despite suffering a stroke in December 2006. An employment tribunal duly found that she had been unlawfully dismissed and a substantial pay-out will now be in order.

John Whittaker claimed that the employer/employee relationship was good – “I always thought we got on well” – but it will be a surprise if Mr Whittaker wins any awards for being a good employer.

It was UKIP wot done it….Honest.

UKIPwatcher was highly amused by the machinations of assorted europhobes in trying to claim credit for the protest in the European Parliament in December during the signing of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Lest we forget, a handful of U-kippers, a couple of barmy Tories and Jim Allister (the man whose hardline unionism was too much even for Ian Paisley’s DUP) donned black T-shirts, held up a few banners, heckled the Portuguese Prime Minister and demanded a referendum on the Reform Treaty.

Tory Daniel Hannan will doubtless have preened his tail feathers when he saw the Guardian’s coverage of the ‘protest’ describing him as “Conservative MEP and protest leader”. This story, needless to say, had UKIP up in arms, as they were themselves keen to claim responsibility. Help was at hand, however, from the ever modest and self-effacing Nigel Farage who authored this great contribution to literature, breathlessly described by UKIPs press goons as an “eyewitness diary of a portentous week at the heart of power”.

The first couple of pages are devoted to ramblings along the lines of “it wasn’t Dan it was UKIP wot done it”, with the boy Nige then sounding a touch defensive in explaining that UKIP are always courteous and never break the rules in the European Parliament (apart from booing and shouting down elected Prime Minister’s when they try to speak). As he put it, UKIPs hooliganism “would never have happened if Labour had kept its promise of a referendum”. Surprising then that he would protest against the signing of a Charter of Rights that was endorsed by the Parliament in November with over 500 votes in favour and 80 against – sorry Nigel, but this is how parliamentary democracy works.

Some might think it bizarre that anyone would want to claim credit for preventing people from speaking and acting in a way that would shame a 6 year old, but an irrelevant fringe party like UKIP (hovering between 0-1% in the polls) have to take what ever scraps they can get.

The torrent of self-pity and self-obsession continues. Nige whinges that the protest “made very big across the Continent, though it receives hardly a mention in the UK”. Don’t flatter yourself Nigel, a handful of no-mark little Englanders behaving badly and pretending to be politicians are not terribly newsworthy. For good measure, he adds that “the UK press just will not acknowledge the extent to which the EU runs our lives”. Unbelievable! Has the man never read an English newspaper?!?!