EU Referendum


EU politics: taking on our own side


08/08/2013



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I was going to ignore this, but the story has grown too big for it to be entirely ignored – which was my first inclination.

Whatever one's views on foreign aid – and this blog has been forthright in expressing ours – there are no redeeming features in this for UKIP. Bloom is a loud-mouthed, drunken braggart at the best of times, without subtlety or intelligence, a man who is an embarrassment to his party and the cause.

But then, Bloom is Nigel "nig-nog" Farage's extra special drinking pal, shoe-horned into position after his having run roughshod though the MEP selection procedures, breaking virtually every rule in the book to get his mate into place. This is as much Farage's blunder as it is the bore Bloom's.

But, as Bloom faced calls to resign, a spokeswoman for UKIP said that Farage was thought to have gone fishing, and would not be available for comment. Thus we have the UKIP leader showing the same lack of leadership which he is displaying over the more serious question of an EU exit plan.

The point is, of course, is that UKIP has to speak to a wider constituency than the party faithful and those who might be amused by Bloom's boorishness. When this excuse for a politician goes off the rails, the very least the party leader could do is be available to attempt damage limitation.

Instead, far too late, we get the blundering Bloom finally making an apology, but not before the Guardian has had a field day.

Thus the current role of UKIP is thus beginning to remind me of the battle of the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia in 1943, when British soldiers were having to fight their way through the retreating Americans to get to the Germans (illustrated).

So it is that we are having to fight our way through UKIP to get to the EU. While representatives such as Bloom commit their blunders – at the taxpayers' expense - we are having to fill the vacuum, fighting the fight in our own time and at our own expense.

When there is so much to do, we really should not be having to take on our own side as well. We barely have enough resources to fight the real enemy. Farage should, therefore, do the decent thing and get rid of Bloom. If he can't bring himself to ditch a fellow drunkard, he should tender his own resignation.

COMMENT: UKIP THREAD