UKIP Are Baiting Welsh Anarchists Into Egging Them

It has become clear that there is no criticism so vehement that UKIP do not see it as vindication. The cliché about "no such thing as bad publicity" doesn't usually hold in politics but for UKIP it seems to work.

Further evidence of this is to be found in Penarth, South Wales, where this week it emerged that the local party had an unusual response to a spate of eggings of their campaign HQ. To most people, this might cause a pause for thought. 'Is it good that we polarise the electorate to the point where members of the public feel compelled to hurl raw eggs at our premises?' they might think.

For UKIP, though, it just gave them an opportunity to show themselves as different from the rest of the identikit world of politics by putting posters in the shop window featuring images of Nigel Farage and local candidate John Rees-Evans with targets on their faces.

The poster reads:

UKIP Penarth also shared the image on Twitter, baiting their opponents.

To be fair, this is more funny than Ed Miliband trying laugh off an 2012 egging with a crap pun about a "cracking" election result. When it happened again in 2013 he said he was "always looking for new ways to connect with the voters." Let's wait and see what he comes up with next time.

Candidate John Rees-Evans is fighting for the Cardiff South and Penarth seat, which is currently held by Labour MP Stephen Doughty. The seat has been Labour held since it was created in 1983, with the Conservatives consistently coming in second. With UKIP nicking supporters from the main three parties, the seat is typical of the type that UKIP are getting their hopes up about. Their big push in Penarth has seen UKIP open a drop-in shop opposite the town's Labour Club with locals supposedly noting that it's, "within easy walking distance, for any members who may be disenchanted with Ed Miliband or Stephen Doughty or both."

Penarth is a relatively elderly and affluent community but the election seat also encompasses a number of traditional working class suburbs in neighbouring Cardiff. You've got Butetown and Grangetown, which have a high level of ethnic diversity including a particularly large Somali community. On top of this there's the fear that the place is incubating Islamic terrorism, as realised in a series of recent arrests. In short, the seat is a microcosm of the political issues and allegiances that UKIP are looking to capitalise on. Which makes me wonder if UKIP-eggings could become a running theme of the 2015 election.

UKIP's John Rees-Evans on sexuality

You may remember UKIP's Rees-Evans, 36, as the bloke who claimed a gay donkey tried to rape his horse. Weirdly, Rees-Evans is a bit of a poster boy for freedom of movement, having grown up between Britain and apartheid era South Africa. He then became a soldier fighting first with the British Army and then with the Ugandan People's Defence Force. The aspiring MP now runs a mountaineering company in Cardiff and holds the British Mens' Kilimanjaro speed record. Oh and he also believes the UK is operating under a "Marxist economic doctrine which favour intervention and draconian regulation over the self-regulating influence of free market forces".

And what about the accused egg-throwers? South Wales also has a pretty strong tradition of working class activism, as well as a fairly well organised anarchist network.

One of UKIP's opponents in the May election is the anarchist Class War Party – urging voters to back them "because all the other candidates are scum", but there's no evidence that Class War threw the eggs.

UKIP bragged that putting up the poster at the beginning of December had "taken the fun" out of the egg attacks and they have now stopped.

Be that as it may, a video shot just days after the poster went up appears to show some drunk guys pissing and smashing glasses on the shop, which is probably not much better than egging.

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