Hundreds turn out in Hove to hear UKIP leader

A crowd of about 500 people attended a public meeting in Hove addressed by the UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage.

Mr Farage, an MEP for the South East England constituency, which includes Brighton and Hove, praised the audience for “running the gauntlet” of about 50 protesters outside Hove Town Hall.

And about a dozen people were ejected from the meeting after jeering and chanting as Mr Farage tried to speak.

He told the meeting this evening (Monday 3 June): “We are unashamedly a patriotic party and we believe in standing up for the rights and freedoms of everybody wherever they come from and whatever their race or colour but we oppose the policy of open-door immigration.”

On Thursday 2 May, he said, at the county council elections: “UKIP produced a result that has shaken the lazy consensus politicians to their core.

“People said that they were worried that if they voted UKIP they might let somebody else in.

“But at the county council elections if you voted UKIP you got UKIP in a lot of those seats.

“Thank you, Ken Clarke!

“Instead of playing the ball he played the player. He called us a bunch of clowns.

“We ought to institute an annual Kenneth Clarke prize.

“Maybe it will turn out that he was one of the cleverest double agents ever.”

Mr Farage said that after the elections the Prime Minister David Cameron and his team had given UKIP another boost.

He said that instead of Downing Street turning on UKIP they turned on their own supporters and donors and constituency party chairmen and called them swivel-eyed loons.

He criticised the front-bench teams of the three biggest political parties, saying that they had mostly been to a few schools and a couple of Oxford colleges where they studied PPE (philosophy, politics and economics).

He said that they had gone to work as political researchers. They married each other’s sisters. They hang out together at weekends. And they’ve got no hobbies apart from politics.

“None of them,” he said, “has ever done a day’s work in their lives.

“The political weather in this country has changed.

“You have been denied for far too long a referendum on the most important constitutional question facing this country for 300 years.

“We have an opportunity next year on May 22 (at the European elections) for UKIP to top the poll and cause an earthquake in British politics.”

Challenged

One questioner challenged Mr Farage about race, immigration, the British National Party (BNP) and the English Defence League (EDL).

He said: “The BNP are anti-European. In UKIP we want Britain to divorce the EU but be good neighbours with good trade relations.

“The BNP are protectionist. We want to open up trade not just with the EU but also our friends in  the 54 countries of the Commonwealth.”

He said that the BNP was authoritarian while UKIP was libertarian and wanted smaller government.

He said that the BNP limited its membership to people of Anglo-Saxon or Caucasian origin.

Mr Farage said: “We welcome all people from all races and all faiths.”

He said that his party constitution barred people from joining if they had previously belonged to an extremist racist party.

Nigel Furness, from Hove, asked about the housing crisis in particular for those needing social housing.

Mr Farage said that the right to buy policy, which led to millions of people buying their home from the council, had been a brilliant policy.

He added: “It needed to go hand in glove with the development of more social housing and it’s a great tragedy that it did not.”

Crisis

He blamed open-door immigration for adding to the housing crisis and said: “We do gave a chronic shortage of housing.

“But before we cover the bits of our green and pleasant land that aren’t already covered with useless wind turbines we should prioritise the development of brownfield sites.”

Before Mr Farage arrived, the chairman of UKIP in Brighton and Hove, Nigel Carter, encouraged the audience to join the cause.

He urged people to help UKIP fight the European elections next year and the general election and local elections in 2015.

Mr Carter stood against Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion at the 2010 general election.

He said: “She was charming. All the candidates were charming. All the parties choose their most charming people to be candidates.”

He self-deprecatingly excepted himself. He said: “On the doorstep, we’re often asked to sum up what we stand for in three or four words. I’d say Australia with the NHS.

“Some people think we’re far-right racists. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“We’re keen on the Commonwealth. We prefer it to the European Union and want a free trade agreement with the Commonwealth.”

Lessons

Mr Carter spoke about the hard lessons that he learnt during the election campaign.

He said: “There were 42,000 homes in the constituency. We only managed to leaflet 16,000 of them.

“It gave us an idea of the huge task we face if we’re to win.”

He said that members had delivered 25,000 leaflets over the past three weeks to promote Mr Farage’s visit.

And he added: “We are targeting all three seats in Brighton and Hove but we’re effective in only half the wards.

“The purpose of this meeting is to help us find out who our supporters are.

“We desperately need them first for the European elections next spring

“We need at least two people, preferably five and ideally 12 in each ward to leaflet and canvass.”

Fewer than half the audience were party members but the Nigels were warmly received by all but a handful of those present.

Next week the party formally starts its campaign for next year’s European elections.