Voters who back the UK Independence Party are racists and its politicians are clowns, Ken Clarke claimed yesterday.
The veteran Tory Cabinet minister led attacks by all three main parties as he said UKIP is merely a protest party and those attracted to it are ‘waifs and strays’ who are simply ‘against’ foreigners and immigrants.
Mr Clarke’s astonishing onslaught came as polls showed that Nigel Farage’s Eurosceptic party has overtaken the Liberal Democrats and is set for its best local election results ever on Thursday, when 35 county councils and unitary authorities in England and one in Wales go to the polls.
Attack: Cabinet minister Ken Clarke branded Ukip's politicians 'clowns' and some of their supporters racist
In a high-risk manoeuvre, Mr Clarke took aim not just at UKIP leaders and their candidates, but also at voters who are considering backing the party, many of whom are disillusioned Tory supporters angry about David Cameron’s stance on immigration and gay marriage.
UKIP called the Conservative onslaught a ‘morally reprehensible smear campaign’ last night – but the party has also faced a series of damaging claims about the background of some of its candidates.
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Asked whether he agreed with David Cameron’s 2006 assessment that UKIP is packed with ‘fruitcakes and closet racists’, Mr Clarke replied: ‘I have met people who satisfy both those descriptions in UKIP.
'Indeed, some of the people who have assured me they are going to vote UKIP I would put in that category. I rather suspect they have never voted for me.'
Email leak: Godfrey Bloom also complained that forging Ukip's policy platform is like 'herding cats', insisting senior figures needed to learn to toe the line
He said he was sure that ‘most of the Ukip people are perfectly nice when they are having a drink’ but added: ‘It is very tempting to vote for a collection of clowns or indignant, angry people, who promise that somehow they will allow us to take your revenge on people who caused it.’
Mr Clarke dismissed UKIP as a protest party, saying: ‘It is against the political parties, the political classes, it’s against foreigners, it’s against immigrants but it doesn’t have any very positive policies, they don’t know what they’re for.’
He criticised UKIP for putting up candidates who have been exposed as former members of the racist British National Party or the English Defence League, who have been kicked out of the party in the past week.
‘They of course have not been able to vet their candidates,’ he said. ‘Fringe right parties do tend to collect a number of waifs and strays.’
Some of Mr Clarke’s comments echo those of former Tory donor Lord Ashcroft, who said UKIP was for ‘none of the above’ voters but privately Tory MPs voiced doubts whether Mr Clarke, the most pro-European Tory, was the best person to make the case against UKIP to Eurosceptic voters.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage said: ‘It’s a bit rich of Ken Clarke to call UKIP clowns when he wanted us to join the euro.’
In February, UKIP beat the Tories into second place in the Eastleigh by-election and party strategists fear they could take Tory seats on Thursday when they field 1,700 candidates.
The Tories are defending more than 30 councils and are widely expected to lose between 300 and 400 councillors, while Labour are expected to pick up 300 and UKIP around 50. The Liberal Democrats are expected to lose around 100.
Discussions: In the recent exchange with Treasurer Stuart Wheeler (pictured), Mr Bloom cautioned that 'some quite senior party members are going to have to stable their hobby horses'
Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin insisted the Tories have no reason to be worried about UKIP, because Nigel Farage’s party ‘says different things to different people’.
But election expert Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University said: ‘Some people are going from Labour to UKIP and Lib Dem to UKIP but the biggest loss to UKIP is suffered by the Tories.
LORD ASHCROFT: CAMERON FACES DEFEAT AT 2015 GENERAL ELECTION
Lord Ashcroft has warned Prime Minister David Cameron that he faces defeat at the general election in two years’ time.
The Tories’ biggest donor of the last decade put together a poll suggesting Labour will gain 109 seats at the 2015 election, including 93 from the Conservative Party.
The predicted result by the former deputy chairman of the Conservatives would make Ed Miliband prime minister and give Labour a House of Commons majority of 84 seats.
Lord Ashcroft told the Financial Times: ‘Even now, 16 years after they dismissed us from office, many people who would once have been natural supporters still do not think the party is on their side.
‘Mr Cameron faces the unenviable task of showing, at a time of austerity, that his party is not just for those who have already achieved material success, while holding on to Tory loyalists and luring back those threatening to defect to UKIP.’
‘Polls show that 16 per cent of Conservative voters in 2010 would vote for UKIP, while it’s 8 per cent for the Lib Dems and 4 per cent for Labour.
'That’s an important part of why the Tories are behind Labour in the polls.’ Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said voters were only backing UKIP because they want to say ‘to hell with mainstream politics’.
Labour’s Hilary Benn said some of the party’s candidates appeared ‘pretty unappealing’.
But UKIP deputy leader Paul Nuttall accused the Tories of running a ‘morally reprehensible smear campaign’ against his party and boasted that their support is growing.
He said: ‘We’re putting on over 100 members a day at the moment. Membership is about 27,000 at the moment, and we’re about 17 per cent in the polls, so I think all bets are off.’
Lord Ashcroft, who ran a poll on why people backed UKIP at Eastleigh, said UKIP has simply cultivated voter grievances.
‘My poll in Eastleigh found that more than four in five of your voters there were protesting about something,’ he said.
In an open letter to Mr Farage yesterday, he said: ‘UKIP has gone from being an anti-EU movement to a broader-based none-of-the-above party. The most successful none-of-the-above party but a none-of-the-above party nonetheless.’