HOPE Not Hate has one principle goal in the forthcoming general election — to limit the success of the UK Independence Party (Ukip).
We believe that Ukip has become a radical right, anti-immigration party. Every success it achieves only further encourages racist scaremongering, intolerance and hatred.

More fundamentally, we believe that Ukip is part of a trend of populist right-wing parties rising across western Europe.

The policies of these “parties of prejudice” are challenging the very notion of a free, fair and multicultural society, where people of different backgrounds and faiths can live together peaceably.

It was not always so. For many years Ukip confined its attention to withdrawing from the European Union (EU).

As such, it was largely ignored by Hope Not Hate. We have no position on the EU.

That changed in the spring of 2013. Ukip contested the Eastleigh parliamentary by-election on a strong anti-immigrant ticket.

The party’s campaign literature exaggerated the immigration threat and employed crude racist scaremongering to try to win votes.

Buoyed up by the attention it began to draw, Ukip started focusing incessantly on immigration.

At the time, we surveyed our supporters. They told us that it was best to expose any racists we discovered within Ukip — rather than oppose the party itself — but they also wanted us to promote our vision of a positive, modern and multicultural Britain.

By the time we reviewed our position in late 2013, the situation had worsened. Ukip was both increasing its use of anti-immigrant rhetoric but, more importantly, was deliberately stoking up public anger through exaggeration and misinformation.

By the beginning of 2014 we decided to take Ukip head-on. We did so stating that it was not a fascist organisation, nor was Nigel Farage a Nick Griffin. We knew we needed to campaign against it differently than against the BNP.

Ukip’s turn to the right was confirmed at the party’s 2014 spring conference. Farage made a Powell-esque speech about not recognising modern Britain and the absence, he claimed, of spoken English on his commuter train from London to Kent.

Ukip was deliberately whipping up fear — and by extension hatred — of foreigners.

However, we were always very careful not to say that all Ukip voters were racist.

Economic pessimism often drives people towards fear and hate. Hence much of our anti-Ukip material focused on providing alternative avenues to the economic and social issues that the party sought to exploit.

There is nothing wrong about talking about immigration, but is the manner of this debate that is so important.
Decrying its underdog status, Ukip has falsely claimed that “PC” powers and liberal elites prevent immigration being discussed. That is a simply lie, as any casual glance at a newspaper headline will tell you.

Ukip appears intent on whipping up xenophobia with cheap platitudes and scaremongering and falsely blaming all of society’s ills on newcomers.

Opposition to the EU seems to have become a proxy for complaining about the ethnic make-up of Britain — of wanting to turn back to the past.

A survey last year found that just over half of all Ukip supporters believe that all immigrants currently in Britain — including the British-born children of immigrants — should be sent “home.”

For years we were rightly revolted by the BNP and National Front’s demands for forcible repatriation of immigrants.

Yet “repatriation” was Ukip’s official policy until November when Farage was forced to backtrack after media scrutiny.
The almost daily exposés of the racism, extremism and intolerance of Ukip members and candidates sadly reveals the true views of a significant chunk of the party’s supporters.

The party leadership tries to argue that these individuals do not reflect party policy, but the very fact that so many racists and extremists feel so comfortable within Ukip says a lot about the party.

And it is because of this mood among Ukip’s membership that the party’s leading British Asian member Sanya-Jeet Thandi resigned after accusing it of “racist populism.”

The chair of its LGBT group Tom Booker also left, complaining about homophobia and felt that he could defend it no longer.

As if not to be outdone, Farage hit a new low in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks, speaking against a supposed Muslim “fifth column” in this country and claiming that there were no-go areas for non-Muslims in France. 

“We’re going to have to be a lot braver and a lot more courageous in standing up for our Judeo-Christian culture,” he said.

This incendiary language can only further add suspicion, fear and division between communities, ignoring the multi-ethnic and multifaith country we have become.

Ukip remains a party of protest, untested by the constraints of government. It is part of a wave of anti-immigration populism sweeping across Europe — and that is why it would be dangerous to dismiss its threat.

In a continent that is increasingly fractious, suspicious and economically insecure, these groups are challenging the very existence of a multicultural society and the compatibility of people of different backgrounds to live together.

By ignoring Ukip’s racist scaremongering we would be guilty of normalising this intolerance, abandoning those at the receiving end of its punishing prejudice.

Yes, many ordinary Ukip members and supporters may not be fascists or white supremacists in the traditional manner we have opposed, yet the intolerance they champion — under their garb of little Britain patriotism — heralds a return to a society built on suspicion and fear, of a place where others feel emboldened to unleash hatred against those they see as “different.”

This is an emerging battle for the type of society we want to live in.

Yes, we need to address the many problems that are out there and have an answer to the economic insecurity of those feel left behind.

But we must also stand up and defend a multi-ethnic and multicultural society. This, fundamentally, is the reason we — and we hope others — should oppose Ukip.

- Nick Lowles is chief executive of Hope Not Hate.

- Hope Not Hate is organising a national campaign weekend on April 18-19. For more information visit www.hopenothate.org.uk.