Quango - I Love The UKIP Conference

Eastbourne. The disabled toilet of the English Riviera. God's waiting room. And for three days in September, home to a political party with a similarly decrepit agenda, who want to take us back to the days when Europe was something you invaded, not something you shared a common agricultural policy with. Quango went to the UKIP conference last weekend. It was very pleasant.

Since 1993, the United Kingdom Independence Party have been campaigning for British withdrawal from the European Union. They believe in libertarianism, flat tax rates, free trade, and good ol' traditional British values. They're often shorthanded as a sort of breakaway Eurosceptic wing of John Major's mid-90s Tory party. For many years statistically insignificant in their support, in 2009, they came second in the nation's European elections, beating Labour into third place.

This is Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party. He smokes Rothmans. He has a shitty silver Nokia mobile from 2001 that he plugs one-fingered text messages into. I'm sure if he had invited me back to his car, it would've been a 1979 XJ6 Jag, and there would've been a bottle of Beefeater Gin and some crystal decanters in a polished-wood retractable container on the dashboard. I am reliably informed that when in relaxation mode, he wears mustard-coloured tweeds. This is essentially, how he rolls.

We made our way past the canteen slowly, via various pensioners who all wanted their chat with him, (Nigel is enormously popular within his party, effectively the Sir Cliff of EU-hating). We sat on a park bench outside. He lit up a Rothmans. The 1970s phoned. “Tell them I'll be along in a minute,” he replied.

He likes Cameron. “As a person. We can have a drink… We do, in fact.” But he thinks real Tories hate him. “For splitting the tribe. To these people the tribe, you see, is more important than the cause… Of course I wouldn't change it for the world. To take an idea that had been on the fringes of politics – that had been described as barmy, as the work of cranks, and bring it into the mainstream.” I know it's unlikely, but I cannot emphasise sufficiently what a great guy he is.

I put “Nigel Farage holds two fish.” So far, no one has been back in touch. UKIP prize givers, if you are reading this, please email me and I will tell you where to send the prize.

This man, Albert Burgess, spends a lot of his time encouraging people to lay charges of treason against Douglas Hurd. It's probably as good a hobby as any. Hurd was in the Heath government that took us into the Common Market in 1972. And unlike most of the rest of Ted Heath's cabinet ministers, he has the misfortune of still being alive. Burgess used to be a Special Constable, as you can tell by his eyebrows. And, as it says on the back of his book – The Layman's Guide To The English Constitution – “he personally made over two hundred arrests, many for crimes and drink driving offences and was involved in three murder enquiries, in one of which he detained the prime suspect.” Can Douglas Hurd say that?

We had a twenty-minute chat about how, one day, he was listening to an audio CD of documents released under the Thirty Year Rule relating to Heath's decision to enter in 1972. “Immediately, I thought… that's sedition, that is.” He reckons that, for the crime of having transferred powers to a foreign government, every cabinet minister over the past forty years, by law, ought to be swinging from the gallows for treason. His game, therefore, is to get ordinary members of the public to lay charges of treason at their local nicking shop. He reckons, 'over 200' have done so, so far. “Failure to investigate treason is itself an act of treason… The aim is to get every police station in the land investigating every other police station.” Then, and only then, the proverbial jig will be up. For all his encyclopaedic knowledge of statute, I am not sure as to whether he has ever heard of the offence of 'wasting police time'.

These mugs were on sale at Nigel's personal stand. Without water, it's just a standard black mug. Put hot water in, and the picture of Cameron, plus his deceitful quotes, suddenly becomes visible. Nigel's wife was manning the stand. She did not wish to be photographed. A jolly German woman who'd emigrated to this country many years ago, she spent some time telling visitors a story about how, upon emerging from his crashed plane on election day, still streaked in aviation fuel from the accident, Nigel 'Elf N Safety Can Fugging Fug Themselves' Farage instinctively lit up a cigarette.

This is a very kind woman who offered to hold this teatowel so that I could take a picture of it. I rewarded her with a lifetime subscription to VICE. After all, she is quite young for a UKIP conference attendee. The man on the teatowel is Herman Van Rompuy – President of Europe. Nigel Farage once stood up in a session of the European parliament which Van Rompuy was attending, and gave a speech in which he told him: “I'm sorry but you have all the charisma of a damp rag.” This is why people love Nigel. He tells Belgians where to get off.

This young lady told me she 'does things for Nigel'. I think that means she 'is a PA to Nigel'. Among the things she said she did was invent the Herman Van Rompuy 'damp flannel' tea towel, the Cameron/Pinnochio mug and this cigarette lighter.

She also invented the underwhelming, 'UKIP ticks my box', pen. “It's hard to come up with a slogan for a pen”, she sighed. “What about 'Something st-inks in Europe?” I suggested. She looked away, unimpressed.

UKIP have their own youth wing. It is called Young Independence. It has 163 followers on Twitter. Whereas, in a bygone era, kids joined Young Conservatives or Young Liberals to get laid, it seemed that this knot of pallid young men were here solely to secure British sovereignty, as, bar Nigel's PA, I didn't see a single female of reproductive age the whole time I was at conference. They forgot one pledge on this handout: “More Photoshop training for our nation's young.” UKIP is also home to a former Tory councillor, Bill Etheridge, who decided to take a stand against the PC Brigade, and to 'kick-start debate', by being photographed with a golliwog. Shortly afterwards, he was kick-started out of the Tory party. Debate over. Here, he was running a fringe seminar about pernicious political correctness. Farage was at pains to say he has been active in rooting out any BNP fifth-columners attempting to infiltrate his party. Frankly, his party could still do with a solid prick-fumigation. The paper that says what we're all really thinking. Even if we don't think it yet.

This Christmas, celebrate the season by ramming your solipsistic political idieology down the throats of your friends and family. They'll thank you once the Eurotunnel's been bricked up.

This man is a Creationist Christian Anti-European Anti-Global Warming firebrand. Nice work if you can get it. It may surprise you to know that he has a degree in ‘Science’ from Cambridge University. Actually, he described himself as a 'semi-creationist'. He is also a retired Church of England minister. His stand was divided up into equal hemispheres of each of these three hats. He gave me a complementary copy of his book: While The Earth Endures: Creation, Cosmology And Climate Change. I can’t find much to prove that God hates the Lisbon Treaty within it, though. Sample paragraph: “Contained within this dramatic miracle is a vital truth: God is in charge of the weather and therefore, by extension, the climate. When God put Adam upon earth he made no reference to the weather being man's dominion.” In your face, Haarp.

Nope. No idea.

Then we came upon a clearing in the thicket. Beyond it, a beast stomped and yawled.

Yes, it was a HS2 White Elephant. The gun trembled in my fingers. A flash, a bang, it fell, slewn, taking with it the HS2 High Speed Train proposal. Take that, progress!