UKIP’s biggest problem is stupidity, not racism

Let me be clear, any time you feel the need to write “Let me be clear – UKIP is not a racist party” you are in a pickle. Parties shunned by actual, honest-to-goodness, copper-bottomed, ocean-going racists don’t usually need to make these things clear. There is a protesting-too-much vibe here, too, in which the more strenuously the Kippers reject the accusation so they only succeed in substantiating it. This might not be fair but it’s also life.

The precise point at which a party for racists or a party in which racists feel at home becomes a racist party is a metaphysical question the pondering of which need not detain us. Suffice it to say that Mr Farage’s admission there are plenty of “idiots” within UKIP speaks for itself.

I suppose Gordon Ferguson, the UKIP candidate in Southport who thinks his opponents should be hanged for treason is one of those idiots. But Mr Ferguson, poor fish, is merely following his leader’s example.