A scarlet-faced Kipper boomed: Are you the BBC?
AS at heavyweight boxing bouts or 20-20 cricket matches, there is an unpredictable side to Ukip events. You never quite know if or when someone is about to be given a terrible tonking.
So it proved yesterday morning when the party launched its election manifesto. We were lucky not to have fisticuffs. And that was just between the Kippers.
Other political parties had donned the crepe, muffled the bells and gone into monastic retreat over the Manchester attack. The campaign ceasefire was going to end officially with a minute’s silence at 11am but only light, local electioneering was expected.
Ukip felt democracy should not be silenced by terrorism. It arranged its manifesto event for 10.30am.
The venue was a sweaty basement in Westminster, too small for the numerous reporters, TV crews, politicians and activists who wanted to attend. It was like being in a submarine whose air conditioning had conked out. They say submariners go mad in the end. Standing in that room yesterday, one could believe it.
Party leader Paul Nuttall sped through his speech in a staccato manner.
He knew the event needed to be completed before 11, to allow everyone to observe the silence.
Mr Nuttall, rolling the r’s of ‘Brrrexit’, bounced on his feet. Ukip’s role, he said, was ‘to challenge the cosy Establishment consensus’ about immigration and address issues the ‘Westminster chatterati would rather ignore’.
YOU could sense a frisson from the Westminster reporters as they realised he was having a go at them. Equally, Ukip activists to the right of the room had started muttering in a Mutley-ish way. A more contemplative pose was struck by a suited young blade who dipped his fingertips into a tin of hair wax and started twirling his handlebar moustache.
It was ‘ not good enough to light candles’ to terrorism victims, said Mr Nuttall. We should stop jihadis returning to this country from abroad.
If immigrants felt unable to accept equality for women and gay people, they should hop it. More muttering from the Kippers. Beside me, a reporter from one of the internet sites essayed some superior smirking and eye-rolling.
Mr Nuttall barked out his script like an NCO addressing a platoon. He did not much bother with emollience. Ukip policy chief Suzanne Evans proved a more pony- clubbish presence. Miss Evans put an elegant boot into Theresa May, saying she had failed to control immigration when Home Secretary and that her constraints on police stop-and- search powers had led to a hike in knife crime. Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, had ‘lauded murderous traitors’.
Other Ukip policies included scrapping the BBC licence fee, slashing foreign aid, removing VAT from fish and chips and abolishing the House of Lords (cheers).
With the clock ticking ever closer towards 11, there was time for a few questions. Channel 4’s Michael Crick wondered if Ukip was ‘blatantly exploiting Manchester’. Whoosh! A Kipper near me in a blue t-shirt went nuts, as did various of his mates, shouting ‘dreadful question’ and ‘oh get stuffed!’ In that tiny room, their screams were deafening.
ITN’s Libby Wiener asked if Mr Nuttall had intended ‘an insult’ to those who had lit candles in Manchester. ‘Your question is an insult! Ask a sensible question!’ came the roars and boos from the Kippers. One of them was the Earl of Dartmouth, MEP.
Ukip’s popular Press spokesman Gawain Towler, quietly asked his lordship to pipe down. The Earl took this badly and flared up all over again.
A plainclothes bodyguard moved over and told the lads to simmer down. They pretty much ignored him.
By now Laura Kuenssberg was asking if Ukip were ‘as near as damnit blaming the PM’ for the Manchester bombing. ‘Are you from the BBC?’ boomed a Kipper, face scarlet with anger. ‘Crawl back down your hole!’
Then it was time for the minute’s silence and we all stood there, trying to think prayerful and virtuous thoughts, while steam rose from the throng.
All in all, an odd morning.