Daily Mail
March 8, 2014
Some members of the UK Independence Party are ‘literally akin to the Nazis’, according to a Tory MP.
In an incendiary attack ahead of the European elections, Robert Halfon said the anti-EU party had played a helpful role in ‘cleansing’ the Conservatives of people with extreme views.
Mr Halfon, an ally of Chancellor George Osborne and Tory chairman Grant Shapps, cited the example of UKIP immigration spokesman Gerard Batten, who believes that British Muslims should sign a special code of conduct rejecting violence.
Mr Halfon, who is Jewish, said: ‘To me there are two kinds of UKIP – the [former defence spokesman] Godfrey Bloom guy who’s like a cross between Sid James and Bernard Manning, and then there’s a much more sinister element, like the MEP who said every Muslim has got to sign a declaration of non-violence, which to me is literally akin to the Nazis saying Jews should wear a yellow star.
‘I genuinely find it abhorrent and frightening. I’m amazed that man is still an MEP. How someone could say such a thing and then not apologise for it…’
The MP said such people were not welcome in the Conservative Party and insisted he was glad they had been driven out by UKIP.
‘In many ways UKIP have done us an enormous favour because they’re cleansing people from the Tory party that had these kinds of views, which is great because I don’t want people who have those kinds of views in my party. So good luck to them, really,’ Mr Halfon told political magazine The House.
His incendiary attack on Nigel Farage’s party, in the run-up to the European elections in May, prompted an angry reaction from UKIP and will divide opinion on the Conservative benches.
The Tory leadership has fought shy of making direct attacks on UKIP since David Cameron prompted a backlash by dismissing the party’s representatives as ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’ in 2006. Party strategists warned that such remarks risked backfiring and playing into UKIP hands.
But some senior Tories now appear to have decided to confront the party, which says it is on course to top the polls in elections to the European Parliament on May 22, more aggressively.