Wait... What if UKIP Weren't Actually Real?

An incident from the UKIP Manifesto launch yesterday, where UKIP launched such policies as "Believe in Britain" and "Britain very good" and "lovely Britain" and "I like Britain": Telegraph journalist Christopher Hope asked an innocuous question about diversity in the party's manifesto brochure, and UKIP supporters turned around and booed him. Let's process that again, shall we? Let's rewind that and look at it again: UKIP, a party that repeatedly goes to great lengths to point out that is isn't racist, literally booed a journalist when he said the word-pair "black face". That happened. People turned around, en masse, and started booing.

"Are you happy that the only black face in the [manifesto] is on the overseas aid page?" Hope asked, to almost immediate boos. The subtext of the boos was: Hey, stop it! Stop going on about diversity! The subtext is: Please stop reminding us how bigoted we are! No! It is our special manifesto day! No, boo! Then some of the party's ethnic minority supporters stood up and turned around and just looked at him, while the rest of the UKIP supporters – including Farage himself – just started clapping. The thinking here seems to be that: maybe if you boo loud enough and clap hard enough, then people being offended by a complete lack of ethnic diversity – just one black face in a 76-page document – will just go away?

I wish UKIP luck with this method of reputation management. "They are good, UKIP, aren't they?" people say. "Got a lot of policies about tax breaks then something I didn't quite hear because they were all shouting at once, but otherwise: solidly good eggs." Never before has a party said: "LA LA LA, I'M NOT LISTENING" so hard they got into Westminster, but maybe UKIP are the ones to finally change that.

But I mainly wish UKIP luck because this "booing the concept of The Other" incident has finally endorsed a long-held theory I have about the party, which is namely this: UKIP are not real. They are absolutely not real. They are in fact a Labour terror cell precision-engineered to bring the Conservatives to the ground.

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Consider the possible outcomes of the upcoming election: the Tories edge a slightly larger majority and mop up every party that isn't Labour, SNP or the Greens to form some sort of cobbled, rickety coalition; Labour edge the vote and hook up with SNP and everyone just keeps saying "trident" a lot. Nobody seems to be able to call it just yet, but it seems like one of the big two will edge a vote and form some sort of crap dream team that everyone will hate, like when two local football clubs merge and alienate all of their fans. There are no winners. There are no losers. There are only different shades of compromised mediocrity.

But come on: who, realistically, are UKIP going to take votes off? Labour voters – the ones who read the Guardian, at least – won't be defecting in their droves to back UKIP ("It's good how they hate immigrants and their tuition fee policy entirely shuns the arts! I really like how obsessed they are with the sanctity of the pound!"), and nor will Greens ("It's just how unprogressive they are, and backwards! That's what appeals to me! I'm sacking composting off for xenophobia now!"). The Lib Dems might lose a few, but not enough to make an impact. All the weird little one-note parties that don't really matter will continue to be weird and not really matter. But the big vote swing will be from dyed-in-the-wool Tory voters, fuming that the Conservatives don't quite hate Europe enough any more. The kind of people who know more than one Masonic handshake and can explain to you what a Rotary Club is. The kind of people who get mad if a high-speed rail line is built in their county in case it impacts on their property values. People who wear special gloves when they drive.

So when May 7th rolls around, Middle England is split between one slightly more right-wing party and another, Labour stroll through the middle to victory, Ed Miliband assumes power, David Cameron just screams so much his head explodes, and then, in one final twist, Ed Miliband emerges from Number 10 holding Nigel Farage's arms aloft in a Rocky-style victory pose.

"He's not real!" Ed Miliband's saying. "He can't be, can he? Look at him!" Nigel Farage is nodding along. "No, he's right," Nigel Farage is saying. "My name's Alan and I'm a drama tutor from Sussex. I used to be in Minder." Mark Reckless peels off an eerily lifelike mask to reveal he's actually jobbing actor Shaun Williamson. "I'll do literally anything for money," Shaun Williamson says. "It's hit the skids lately, my life. It's been shit." All the legitimate racists who got conned by the party are stood around in their little yellow-purple rosettes looking bereft. All the Labour lot are waving little red flags. And Ed Miliband is just cackling there, in the middle of it all, at how he just Usual Suspects-ed every last one of us. Does a big thick piss on the floor. Walks off with a quickly healing limp. That sort of thing.

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A lot of people say my theory of Ed Miliband as a piss infection-wielding movie villain is a far-fetched one, but is it really more far-fetched that UKIP existing? Consider: this is a party that grandstands on a broadly anti-immigration platform that tweeted earlier this year to remind British migrants to register for the postal vote because their voices still matter. Shh, shh: don't try to understand it. Just let it wash over you, like the warm seas of Benidorm as they greet each new morning with a wave of used condoms filled with expat spunk.

I have been following the party particularly closely for the last few months. This is the only political party in the UK who can boast that one of their more serious candidates once watched a "gay donkey" attempt to fuck a horse. This is a party that, in February, hired a Bulgarian leafletter to go door-to-door handing out anti-migrant labour leaflets then backpedalled against its own policy to help explain the oversight. "I think it's absolutely fantastic UKIP is employing people and boosting the local economy." You can't have it both ways, UKIP's David Little! You cannot prophesy a doomed future where – much like the alternate timeline where Hitler won the war and we all walk around speaking German – the UK's native tongue is Romani and the national anthem is played on a battered accordion, and then turn around and jizz up your dick for having the temerity to hire a Bulgarian leafletter! You either welcome immigration or you don't!

This is a party who quietly got rid of one councillor after he went on Facebook and openly questioned why he can't say " Dark Person" any more. Who had a candidate stand down last month after he called homosexuality a "perverted corruption". Who have a candidate – still running – who once compared Tinchy Stryder to a Freddo Frog in a tweet, and tried to explain his way out of it by saying he was actually making a fat joke at Gemma Collins' expense. Because she's fat, isn't she! She could probably eat Tinchy Stryder in one screaming gulp! Aren't they expensive though, Freddoes, these days? Not like the old days, eh. Anyone else notice that the country has got a lot more ethnic at the same time Freddo Frogs have quietly risen in price? Anyone else think that's a bit suspect? Vote UKIP.

A party whose candidate once got in trouble for filming a porno on campus at Bristol University. A party who's leader has had to repeatedly – repeatedly – state that he isn't racist. He had to take a full-page newspaper advert out to say he wasn't racist, which is one of the most racist-person things ever to occur. It's a party who boo journalists who ask questions about diversity. Can UKIP be real? They can't be real. It's so messed up they are real. Ed Miliband, please: if this is a thought experiment, dial it back a bit. UKIP, if you are real: log off.

@joelgolby

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