Interviews with Ukip bigwigs used to happen in pubs. But times are changing. When I meet Patrick O’Flynn — the party’s economics spokesman, and until recently chief spin doctor — it’s in a juice bar.
O’Flynn, a former political editor of the Daily Express who studied economics at Cambridge, is one of those driving Ukip towards professionalism. Ukip, he says, is the only party he’s ever joined, and it is ‘not part of the Conservative family’. That is why he rates its chances in northern Labour seats: ‘We didn’t close down any coal mines or steelworks and we’re not known as the patrician Home Counties rich people’s party.’ He claims, rather extravagantly, that voting Tory north of Birmingham is likely to save a Labour MP: ‘If the Tories really want to stop a Labour government, then perhaps, unilaterally, they should stand aside in those seats.’
O’Flynn is nothing if not a Farage loyalist. He refers to the leader as ‘our genius’ and is insistent that he is still calling the shots even though the party now has an MP, Douglas Carswell. When I put it to him that Carswell’s votes in the Commons must now define Ukip policy, he replies that this would involve ‘according Douglas total power to set Ukip policy on everything, which clearly isn’t the way it is going to work’.
No other party claims that Westminster votes don’t reflect its official policy positions — not even the Greens, who like Ukip only have one MP and a leader outside the Commons. But O’Flynn is adamant that Ukip is different. ‘Well the Greens don’t have a leader like Nigel Farage, do they? We have an incredibly strong leader who is undoubtedly the most important reason for our success and has connected with a huge slice of the electorate.
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