Voting for UKIP

Listeners to the Today programme at 7.30 this morning will have been treated to one of the most blatantly biased pieces of political commentary I have ever heard broadcast. Europe editor Mark Mardell was given free rein to tell the nation what he really thought of the United Kingdom Independence Party, concluding with the thought that they were little more than "licensed court jesters" at the European Parliament. I thought Nigel Farage's response, that it was "grossly unfair", was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. It is a lazy cliché to complain about pro-EU bias at the BBC, but believers in the myth of the Brussels Broadcasting Corporation will have found much it Mardell's little rant to confirm their prejudices. He even regarded it as damning of UKIP that it has not fitted easily into the cosy consensus world of EU deal-making - when that, surely, is their whole point. It is almost as though the Beeb (or at least its Europe editor) is so panicked at the latest polls (suggesting that UKIP might beat both the Lib Dems and Labour) that it has jettisoned all pretence at balance and gone for UKIP's jugular.

I have a confession to make. I voted for UKIP in the last Euro elections. I did so fully aware of the amateurism and unrealism inherent then (and now) in the party, and that their chances of achieving anything practical were negligible. I did so despite, not because, of the fact that their most prominent candidate was the preening orange absurdity Robert Kilroy-Silk. I didn't expect them to implode. I hoped that the responsibility of having a substantial presence in the European parliament would force UKIP to get its act together, to become a more realistic and practical outfit, to work towards being more than a small protest party, even perhaps to begin reshaping politics at a national level.

It didn't happen, of course. UKIP proceeded to act rather like a lottery winner who has no experience of managing money and blows the lot in six months. There were splits. Kilroy stormed off to form his own vanity party - no great loss, admittedly. There were expenses fiddles shocking even by the standards of the European Parliament, which in one case has resulted in imprisonment. There were ugly internal wranglings. The initial cohort of twelve was depleted to nine. They have done little or nothing towards reversing European integration, which has proceeded apace, still less advanced their ultimate project of pulling Britain out of the EU entirely.

UKIP are not and never have been my ideal party. They remain, to an uncomfortable extent, a party of amateurs. I'm discomforted by the stridency of some of their anti-immigration rhetoric. Their policy of pulling out of the EU entirely goes too far. I would prefer a radical renegotiation, backed up by a realistic threat of withdrawal, with large areas of public policy returned to full national control. This isn't because I object to "Brussels", but because the way in which directives are arrived at and imposed on the different peoples of Europe is profoundly undemocratic. The EU directive has proved immensely useful to governments - above all, perhaps, the British government - wishing to get controversial policies implemented without proper scrutiny and without even taking the blame. The data retention directive, for example, under which the government is attempting to put into being a regime of all-embracing surveillance on the population, is disguised as "implementing a directive", despite the fact that it was a policy pushed by the Home Office and imposed against the reluctance of several other EU states. That alone is reason enough to ditch the entire rotten system.

The EU can never work as a fully integrated democratic state because there is no such thing as European public opinion, no single debate, and very little cross-recognition of politicians. All countries, elections to the EU parliament are fought on domestic issues. Integrationists of good will (such as, for example, Timothy Garton Ash) bemoan this, but there is little than can be done about it. History, and above all language, has made the peoples of Europe different nations. An EU that worked with, rather than against, that centrifugal instinct would be more in tune with people in all European countries. It would have less institutional power, but it would get more done. William Hague's old slogan, "in Europe but not run by Europe", is a realisable aspiration. And the Conservative party - ideally led in Europe by Daniel Hannan - remains the party best placed to deliver such an outcome. For one thing, they will probably form the next government. UKIP are unlikely to win a single Westminster seat.

UKIP remain slightly ridiculous (with, as the phrase goes, "questions to answer"), and Nigel Farage is far from being my ideal political leader. Nevertheless, I will probably be voting for them again. The implosion of the big parties - at least in terms of public esteem, at least for the time being - gives UKIP another chance to become a serious outfit. They look set to reap a good haul of seats - perhaps even more than last time. They are now older and, I hope, more experienced. All smaller parties go through a stage of amateurism, embarrassing personalities and weird obsessions. The Greens are now so respectable that the extreme radicalism of most of their policies is scarcely examined in the mainstream media (certainly not by the BBC). Yet it is not twenty years since they were represented publicly by David Icke. Labour, in its early days, was a fringe party. The Liberal party, once it fell from power, spent decades dominated by strange men with long beards. Yet the Liberal Democrats are now a serious political force. There is no reason why UKIP should not in time undergo a similar tranformation. It embodies, after all, a point of view that is held by a significant percentage of the British population. Whether right or wrong, it deserves to be represented in Brussels by virtue of that fact alone.

The possibility that they might beat Labour is almost a reason to vote for them in itself. And a good showing by UKIP would have the pleasing side-effect of keeping the BNP out, or at least down. It will break up the consensus, make mainstream politicians realise that the existence of their parties is, in the end, dependent on the public being prepared to vote for them. It is a relatively safe form of protest. And it is also a vote on the issues.