Douglas Murray

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_29_May_2014_v4.mp3" title="Douglas Murray and Mats Persson discuss the aftermath of the Euro elections" startat=40] Listen [/audioplayer]It must have come so easily back then. In April 2006, the young David Cameron had already assumed the mantle of leader of the Conservative party as arranged by his predecessor, Michael Howard. And as he prepared to assume the next highest office, the insult fell from his mouth with extraordinary ease. ‘Ukip is sort of a bunch of fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists,’ he told his radio interviewer. Deadly. Though not, as it finally turned out, for the party he was attacking. Last week that same Ukip topped the British polls at the European elections.

Ukip have come top of the polls for the UK in the EU elections. Now which of the two following scenarios might we most likely expect from the other parties? Might the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties, along with their amazingly loyal chorus-line in the British media, wake up sincerely believing that a 'racist' political party is now the biggest UK party in the EU? Do you think they will escalate a war against that party and the public who voted for them, such as would only be appropriate from anyone who actually believed that this country was now dominated and — in Brussels at least — led by 'racists'.

Well it’s polling day, and if anybody wants a spur to vote Ukip they have two options: Peter Oborne’s stirring cover piece in the new issue of The Spectator and Matthew d’Ancona’s column in yesterday’s Evening Standard. If the sight of white activists pretending to be Romanians so that they could accuse black UKIP members of ‘racism’ did not push you over the edge, then d’Ancona’s column probably will. His article was headlined: ‘We must expose UKIP as the racist party it is.’ This is some promise: for years, Ukip's enemies have been trying to suggest that the party is racist. D'Ancona's evidence? Ukip seemed to be racist because it - like the vast majority of the British public – is opposed to mass immigration.

Inevitably the lowest attacks have been saved until the week of the election. For months now the neat drip-feeding of anti-UKIP stories from Conservative Campaign Headquarters direct to the UK press has done everything possible to depict UKIP as a racist, xenophobic, bigoted party. This has been significantly ratcheted up ahead of Thursday’s vote. Today’s pages include the Times repeating a story from last year in the hope of successful guilt-by-association. The story is that Geert Wilders (the ‘Dutch Xenophobe’ as the Times headlines him) would like Nigel Farage to join him and Marine Le Pen in an anti-EU Brussels voting bloc.

This has been a bad month for those who want to shut down free speech in Britain. First there was the wholesale failure of Fiyaz Mughal (whose 'work' I have written about before). Readers will recall that Mr Mughal – whose website, Tell Mama, claims to record and counter 'Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred' – used the immediate aftermath of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby to claim hysterically that, 'The scale of the backlash is astounding… there has been a massive spike in anti-Muslim prejudice'. He also used the opportunity to attack the UK government's counter-terrorism policy. All this before Drummer Rigby – who some people may remember was killed in an actual attack by two Islamic extremists – was buried.

Peter Hain has become a disgrace. Earlier this year it appeared that the Former Northern Ireland Minister was one of the people responsible for the cock-up over letters of amnesty for ‘on-the-run’ terrorists. Now he has gone several steps further. Just last month Hain was just telling everybody who has lost a relative during the Troubles in Northern Ireland and who never saw anyone convicted for the crime that they should just get over it. His line as of last month was that victims of unsolved cases must simply accept that they will never see justice. But now he seems to have decided that he is not merely a cack-handed peacemaker and advisor to the bereaved, but a judge and jury too.

My colleague Nick Cohen has a piece asking ‘Are you fit to be British? Take the UKIP test.’ In it he cites a number of horrible and silly and things said by people in UKIP before he himself descends into rudeness.  Stuart Wheeler is apparently a ‘cadaverous gambling tycoon’. ‘Cadaverous’? As in old? I suppose it must come to us all. But it is Nick’s conclusion that spurs me to respond. He finishes, ‘The scandals are so frequent you have to conclude that it is not the odd rotten apples that needs throwing out but the whole stinking barrel.’ Nick is not the only journalist to take this view. The British media in general are keeping up a sustained open season on UKIP.

As so often (in my opinion) Tony Blair is almost right. In a wide-ranging speech at Bloomberg this morning he roamed over Syria, Libya, the Middle East and the West’s withdrawal of interest, let alone engagement, in the region. But it is Blair’s comments on Islam that are most interesting, are already garnering headlines and merit most attention. Referring to the problems across the Middle East he said: ‘At the root of the crisis lies a radicalised and politicised view of Islam, an ideology that distorts and warps Islam’s true message. The threat of this radical Islam is not abating. It is growing. It is spreading across the world. It is de-stabilising communities and even nations.

Readers will know that I am interested in the subject of post-Good Friday agreement 'justice' in Northern Ireland. Having been one of the few people to have followed the possibilities of justice over Bloody Sunday, I also recently wrote about the apparently one-sided amnesties which the last Labour government appears to have given to Republicans not convicted of crimes but counted as 'on the run'. It has long been my contention that justice cannot only be applied to one side or one group of people. Investigate the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment for what happened in January 1972 and you have to investigate the leadership of Sinn Fein – IRA for their activities.

The UK government has announced a long-overdue investigation into the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK. I am delighted. Why Britain should continue to act as an Argentina-like sanctuary for Islamic fascists I have never understood. I hope the investigation will be deep and wide-ranging. But of course if the government really wants to go into this properly it could do no better than to start at its own doorstep. Last week the inept and unelectable Baroness Warsi announced the formation of a new Foreign Office Advisory Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Given that Warsi has previously and repeatedly claimed that tackling 'Islamophobia' is one of the UK government's 'priorities' I think we can probably all guess where this 'Advisory group' will be heading.