Real independence means breaking free of Israel

By Nigel Farage

A number of readers expressed shock and disappointment at my recent article “Britain’s UKIP – another Zionist lobby tool”. They’d had high hopes of the UK Independence Party hauling us out of the European Union cesspit and injecting commonsense into the bloated backside of Westminster politics. Furthermore, they admired Nigel Farage, UKIP’s leader.

Stooge of Israel

That was before they saw UKIP’s foreign policy on the Middle East, as set out word for shameful word in the party’s statement “Out of the EU, into the world”, from which it appears that UKIP has quietly turned itself into another of Israel’s stooges despite that regime’s illegal occupation of Palestine, its endless crimes against humanity and, not least, the arrogant disregard for its obligations under the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

This unwelcome coziness is reinforced by the mission statement of the party’s Friends of Israel fan club, which we’re told has “tremendous” support within UKIP.

Member of the European Parliament Marta Andreasen’s sudden defection to the Conservatives is another warning that things are not as they should be at the heart of UKIP. While employed as the EU’s chief accountant she famously refused to sign off the 2001 accounts and was viciously persecuted for her pains. The gaping maw of the EU swallows an annual budget of GBP88 billion. This year the Court of Auditors again refused to sign off the accounts – for the 16th year running – an indication of how deeply mired in fraud and evil the whole ludicrous enterprise is.

In her farewell Ms Andreasen said UKIP’s leader [Farage] treats any views other than his own with contempt and UKIP is “his plaything to mould and shape in any way he sees fit, regardless of the views of others… His actions, surrounding himself with an old boys’ club of like-minded sycophants, are dictatorial.”

A couple of weeks earlier she had described Farage’s leadership as “Stalinist” and said that he promotes people who “will never contradict him”.

Farage dismissed all this by saying the Conservative Party deserves what is coming to it, adding: “The woman is impossible.”

Then there’s UKIP’s worrisome attitude towards Iran, against which it is prepared to use “military means”. However, there is still no evidence from intelligence sources or the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran has a nuclear weapons programme, and Iran has repeatedly said it does not intend going that far. The trouble is that few in the West want to believe what the mullahs say. And the rate at which Iran is investing in new kit to speed up uranium enrichment is bound to raise eyebrows. But as long as UKIP’s friend Israel has hundreds of nukes and refuses comprehensive inspections and safeguards, Iran, which has good reason to feel threatened, can claim a need.

Iran at least is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; Israel isn’t. Fancy talk about a nuke-free Middle East is all very well but when will the West suit action to its words and bring Israel to heel? And what exactly will UKIP do to help make it happen? They don’t say.

Dual allegiance – to Israel and UK

A good proportion of “UKippers” are ex-Tories, including Farage himself. We should remember that 80 per cent of Tory MPs and MEPs are signed-up members of Conservative Friends of Israel. This “dual allegiance” now seems to be part of right-wing culture, a culture that will almost certainly drag us into more mad military adventures and more mindless conflict, death and destruction that’ll make us more and more enemies. But UKIP wants to increase our defence spending by 40 per cent (another 1 per cent of GDP), so who cares?

I share people’s disappointment. As a former supporter of UKIP in the party’s early days, I contacted the local branch recently with a view to helping in the upcoming county council elections, but then I thought I’d better check their Middle East policy – and got a nasty surprise. Like many others, I believed UKIP’s time had finally come and I wanted them to succeed, but not if it meant aligning with Israel’s criminal ambitions and showing indifference to the injustice and brutality it inflicts on others.

Claiming “Israel has maintained an impeccable human rights record” is outrageous, and seeking to cement “true friendship” with the hoodlums who have been devastating Palestine and its people for 65 years is about the lowest thing anyone can do.

One reader wrote to Farage: “Your party has so much in its favour, it would be a great pity if you allowed this support for Israel to permeate everything you do from here on. You do not need such patronage…”

Another sent him this: “It is worse than disappointing to hear that UKIP is aligning with Israel. I feel you should be ashamed of yourselves but, as UKIP seems to be as ready as any other political group to ignore moral considerations when choosing allies and deciding on policy, this doesn’t seem likely…”

Scandals, squabbles, rednecks and fascists

UKIP must be squeaky-clean if it wants my support. The party has had plenty of time to prepare itself as a high-principled alternative to the corrupted mainstream. But, by all accounts, it’s not the happy ship it could be. UKIP is torn by mutinous squabbles and tainted by scandal, which I won’t go into here. And let’s not even mention the unsavoury rednecks and right-wing extremists they hobnob with in the European Parliament.

Farage cuts a buccaneering figure. Despite the bad press he and his colleagues often generate many people prefer him to the gutless eurofreaks normally inflicted on us. But it seems to me that a party declaring for UK/British independence should not be waving the flag of any other country, certainly not the banner of a foreign military power with the worst brand image on the planet. And not the flag of Palestine either. Yes, there’s a Friends of Palestine group in UKIP, described by Channel 4 News as “being at odds with the party’s broad support for Israel”.

The launch of the Palestine fan club provoked this silly response from the Jewish Defence League:

Until now we thought it was logical to assume that since UKIP was the only voice against the leftist EU project in Britain, that it would naturally be against other such lunacies in the world. We therefore are shocked and saddened that UKIP should seek to state it is for an equally dubious con such as the Arab colonial project called “Palestine”… there is no “Palestinian” persecution, genocide, ethnic cleansing or whatever else they’ll think up.

Both groups should of course be disbanded. There’s no room for either of them in a genuine Britain-first organization. Nevertheless, I hope UKIP’s top management will, before it’s too late, do some proper research, go to the Holy Land and see the situation for themselves (but not as guests of Israel’s Propaganda Unit, obviously), visit Gaza too and even shoot the breeze with Hamas. How else will they ever learn what they ought to know if they wish to govern?

Marta Andreasen’s departure leaves UKIP with just 11 MEPs, all men. Perhaps a few more “impossible women” are just what Farage and UKIP need (no, deserve) to straighten them out.

In the meantime, do we who are sick of the EU endorse “Stalinist” Farage or wait indefinitely for the in-out referendum promised by Agent Cameron? It’s a rotten choice.