AFTER spectacular success in the European elections, the UK Independence Party now plans to “gate crash” two key Conservative campaigns, it emerged last night.
Joining the “no” campaigns in the referendum on the regional assemblies in October and in the referendum on the European constitution is a canny move by the UKIP to gain the state funding that would otherwise fall to the Conservative campaign.
In both cases, each side of the campaign receives state funding via the Electoral Commission — in the case of the referendum on the European constitution each side will receive £600,000. This will now have to be split between the Tories and the UKIP.
The move is part of a wider strategy to boost the funds and legitimacy of a party dismissed by Michael Howard as “gadflies”, which has now quadrupled its seats in the European Parliament to 12. The initiative extends to Brussels, where the UKIP will meet with other Eurosceptic parties tomorrow with the intention of forming their own group and founding a research unit in the Belgian city with hundreds and thousands of pounds of European Union funds.
The UKIP’s leadership is also hoping that Peter Mandelson will stand down as the MP for Hartlepool to become European Commissioner so that it can fight the subsequent by-election there, rather than the by-election in Leicester South next month.
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Robert Kilroy-Silk, who is now one of the UKIP’s two MEPs in the East Midlands, said at a press conference yesterday that his plan was to “wreck” the EU.
When asked what he intended to do in the Parliament he said: “Wreck it. Expose it for the waste, the corruption and the way it’s eroding our independence and our sovereignty.”
Before the election, the UKIP’s three MEPs were the most anti-EU members of the Parliament’s Eurosceptic Europe of Diversities and Democracies group. It aimed to subvert the parliamentary process whenever possible. In 2001 it voted to send a food supplement measure back, and so delay it for years.
UKIP takes its responsibilities seriously: over the past five years, its three MEPs have attended on average 72 per cent of votes, compared with 81 per cent of Britain’s most Europhile party, the Liberal Democrats.
Like the other UKIP MEPs, Mr Kilroy-Silk will take the post’s expenses. In the past, party MEPs have done their best to highlight the extravagence of EU expenses. The three UKIP MEPs pooled the excess on their travel expenses to fund the “metric martyr”, the Sunderland greengrocer prosecuted for trading in pounds and ounces. They were disciplined by the EU and asked to return the £11,500.
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But their lack of numbers meant that they were rarely successful in blocking and delaying votes. The UKIP’s elections success means the Eurosceptic group has now more than doubled to around 40 or 50 members, who could hold the swing vote in legislation.
The UKIP is now also by far the largest party in the group, and in tomorrow’s meeting will be in a strong position to take control of the group under a different name and along harder policy lines.
“We may be forming quite a large Eurosceptic group in this new Parliament and we may hold the balance of power in that Parliament,” said Nigel Farage, UKIP MEP.
“If we can use that position to obstruct and delay new legislation we will do so, and will do so knowing that that legislation falls upon the small businesses in this country that are the backbone of our economy and they’ll be cheering us to the rafters if we can do that.”
The new group will entitle the UKIP to funding to employ at least a dozen staff in Brussels in addition to administrative support. The UKIP intends to use this to set up a policy research unit in Brussels, rather than in London as first planned, David Lott, the party’s chairman said.