UK's EU bad boy guns for parliament's speaker
Published: Mar 19, 2010 20:22 Updated: Mar 19, 2010 20:22
MILTON KEYNES, England: Fresh from a withering verbal attack on the European Union president, Britain's most outspoken EU critic is turning his attention on a target closer to home.
Nigel Farage, a member of the European Parliament for the UK Independence Party (UKIP), caused offense among his colleagues last month by describing Belgian Herman Van Rompuy, the new President of the European Council, as "a damp rag" with the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk.
"If the entire political class are united in their disgust of me, I must be getting something right," the beaming 45-year-old told Reuters at UKIP's party conference in Milton Keynes, north of London.
Now the colourful, charismatic former commodities broker is hoping to upset tradition again, this time by ousting Britain's new parliamentary speaker in an upcoming national election.
Custom dictates that the main political parties do not contest the seat held by the speaker, who chairs parliamentary debate and is the highest authority in Britain's elected chamber, the House of Commons.
But that has inspired Farage to try to unseat John Bercow, an opposition Conservative who was elected speaker after the former incumbent became the first in 300 years to be forced out of office over his handling of a lawmakers' expenses scandal.
UKIP, which wants Britain to pull out of the EU, stunned Britain's political establishment last year by beating ruling Labour into third place in the European parliamentary elections, taking more than 16 percent of the vote in the process.
However, the party has previously been unable to convert support into success in national polls and Farage probably represents UKIP's best chance of winning its first seat in Westminster.
"I think that this constituency above all others offers people the opportunity to send a message to the entire political class," he said. "I think this speaker is a symbol of that political class and all that is wrong in politics today."
Squeezing the conservative vote
Analysts say Farage stands a fair chance of an unlikely victory in Bercow's Buckingham constituency, an affluent town 60 miles northwest of London and a stronghold of the opposition Conservative Party.
Bercow won with a majority of more than 18,000 in 2005.
UKIP party leader Malcolm Pearson believes this time round a combination of its anti-EU message and tough stance on immigration will be a vote winner for Britons angry over a deep recession and the expenses scandal.
"My aim in this election is for UKIP to do well enough to contribute to a hung parliament," he said, using the term for a parliament in which no party wins a majority.
UKIP could divert votes from the opposition Conservatives who are expected to emerge as the largest party. There is a strong anti-EU sentiment among some traditional Conservative supporters.
Pearson is hoping the party could emulate the success of Dutch anti-immigration leader Geert Wilders, whose Freedom Party is neck and neck for the lead in opinion polls before June's parliamentary election.
"Our feedback from the public is that they are very, very worried about immigration. We've really got to slow it down violently otherwise we're going to end up with 70 million people in 20 years time."
