Nobody notices that UKIP has a new leader

5.56.10pm UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 12th Sep 2006

Nigel Farage MEP the new leader of "a bunch of fruit cakes, loonies and closet racists mostly".

Largely unnoticed by the rest of the country Nigel Farage has just been elected leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). Tory leader David Cameron called UKIP "a bunch of fruit cakes, loonies and closet racists mostly". Presumably it takes one to recognize one. The core policy of UKIP is British withdrawal from the EU yet Mr Farage gets a very nice income from being a member of the European Parliament which he occasionally attends.

The history of UKIP itself is littered with divisions and infighting. Its founder Alan Sked quit seven years ago and has attacked the party for moving too far to the right, particularly on immigration. Then there was the weird affair of television personality Robert Kilroy-Silk, who finally quit after failing to takeover the party. The enlargement of the EU and virtual abandonment of Federal ambitions within the EU has left UKIP even more irrelevant than it ever was.