It's UKIP Day.

Well actually it's the start of four days of voting across the European Union (EU) for the European Parliament. However I'm hoping it could also mark the beginning of the end of the hysteria surrounding the UK Independence Party (UKIP) that seems to have gripped the UK for as long as anyone can remember. This hysteria is of course largely the result of an anti-UKIP smear campaign by Britain's political and media establishment which has been one of the nastiest and most dishonest campaigns I think I've ever seen in UK politics.

Over the past week a lot of this has been centred on an interview the UKIP leader Nigel Farage gave to the LBC radio station. In that interview Farage said that most people in Britain would be alarmed if a large group of Romanian men suddenly moved into the house next door to them. The interviewer then asked what the difference between that and a German family moving in would be. Farage simply told him that the difference should obvious to everybody.

To me that seems like an entirely fair comment because rather than talking about the nationality of the people Farage was highlight the effect they would have on changing the community. Amongst economic migrants - particularly those working in the construction industry - it is quite common for a work gang to rent out a four roomed, family sized home. They will then turn all four rooms into bedrooms sleeping two or three people at a time meaning that you get twelve people rather then five living in the same house. They will often then work in shifts meaning that people are up and about in the house 24 hours a day. As they also tend to be young men there's also a fair bit of drinking and fighting that goes on. As such a work gang of economic migrants regardless of their nationality will impact a community in a way that a family made up of two adults and two to three children simply wont.

Obviously though that argument has been deemed far too complicated for UK voters so Farage's comments were almost immediately re-written to remove any reference to the ages, gender, worker status or numbers of the people involved and magically became; "UKIP doesn't want Romanians living next door to them." So I actually think the big scandal of that story is the way that Britain's news media knowingly and collectively changed the facts in order to fit their own political agenda.

The other thing that has really irritated me about this campaign is the way that the political left (Labour Party) has tried to mobilise Black and sub-Asian minority voters against UKIP by portraying them as a racist party similar to the British National Party (BNP) or the National Front (NF) who want to kick out all immigrants. UKIP are apologetically an anti-EU party that are heavily focused on migration from within the EU. However immigration from within the EU is almost exclusively white. Black and sub-Asian immigration into the UK comes almost exclusively from the UK Commonwealth made up of former British colonies such as Jamaica, Nigeria and India. What UKIP want to do is withdraw from the EU and re-align the UK with the Commonwealth so they're actually arguing in favour of Black and sub-Asian immigration into the UK over white immigration into the UK. That is why UKIP actually enjoy a lot of support amongst British voters of Indian heritage.

Finally the people running this anti-UKIP campaign don't seem to have any understanding of how EU politics works. Put simply the European Parliament doesn't have dominant parties because with the exception of the short-lived Libertas experiment parties only stand candidates in their home nation rather than across the EU's 28 member states. So instead of dominant parties you get blocks made up of parties that share similar - but rarely the same - values. UKIP are currently trying to join and become leaders of the far-right/anti-EU block. Having UKIP head that block would certainly be preferable to having it led by actual racist and fascist groups such as Greece's Golden Dawn or France's National Front. So by opposing UKIP in the UK people are actually inadvertently helping to strengthen real fascism within the EU.


Anyway if anybody needs me I'll be off voting for the Green Party.

11:35 on 22/5/14 (UK date).