Nigel Farage addresses the media in central London on May 3, 2013. (BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images)
Two nationalist political forces came face to face in Britain on Friday: drama greeted U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage during a parliamentary campaign in Scotland.
Police had to escort Farage out of a pub, where he was attempting to speak to reporters, after a crowd of left-wing pro-Scottish independence protesters confronted the UKIP leader with chants accusing his party of racism. Farage attempted to mitigate his unpleasant reception by framing it as an anti-English protest by ‘yobbo, fascist scum’ — with some success. But a badly fumbled interview with BBC Radio Scotland on Friday, in which he hung up after being asked about UKIP’s meager role in Scottish politics, gave Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Alex Salmond an opportunity to hit back: ‘We can frankly do without UKIP, who dislike everybody and know absolutely nothing about Scotland.’
Thanks to Salmond, the limitations of UKIP’s appeal are in sharper focus than ever. Despite UKIP’s attempts to shape the discussion (with editorials by supporters blasting ‘Scotland’s Left-wing media mafia‘), it appears to be getting away from them. This will no doubt offer some relief to David Cameron, who has had a lasting headache because of UKIP’s insistence on keeping the sensitive issues of immigration and Britain’s Euro ties central to the current political discourse. It will be of some comfort to him, as well, that the job of taking on Farage was left to another of his political rivals — keeping his Tory government out of this fray.
UKIP’s performance in the upcoming Aberdeen Donside by-election will be good evidence of the party’s marginalization in Scotland, and will put a wrench in the narrative of the party’s accelerating political momentum. That, however, was never the real threat they presented: the party has been far more effective at adding a charge to the U.K.’s political atmosphere than making real inroads on its political establishment. A lost by-election in Scotland, in other words, does not mean Cameron’s headaches are over.
