Opinion

Claire Simpson: Ukip makes me feel queasy

Ukip election candidate Carl Benjamin, who suggested he "might" rape Labour MP Jess Phillip. Picture by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
Ukip election candidate Carl Benjamin, who suggested he "might" rape Labour MP Jess Phillip. Picture by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire Ukip election candidate Carl Benjamin, who suggested he "might" rape Labour MP Jess Phillip. Picture by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

IS it acceptable to joke about rape? Ukip certainly thinks so.

One of the party's candidates in the European elections, Carl Benjamin, sent a tweet to Labour MP Jess Phillips in 2016 saying "I wouldn't even rape you" in response to her statement that she frequently receives threats of sexual assault.

Not content with that, he later expanded on his comment in a recent video, adding: "I suppose with enough pressure I might cave, but let's be honest nobody's got that much beer."

He apparently thought it was fine to joke about committing a serious crime but police took a different view and are now investigating the comments.

Any other serious political party might have thought twice about standing such a candidate for public office.

But Ukip decided that the best way to deal with the appalling remarks was to dismiss them as a 'bit of banter'.

The party's official Twitter feed posted: "The year is 2019, jokes you'd hear down the pub are now worthy of police investigation."

I'm not entirely sure which pubs the Ukip leadership frequent - are they sinking pints in an alternate 1970s universe run by Bernard Manning, Jim Davidson and Roy 'Chubby' Brown?

Ukip used to be a mainstream party with some level of electoral support.

Ex-Tory leader David Cameron was so terrified by the threat of Ukip that he agreed to a disastrous referendum on the UK's EU membership just to head them off.

Now the party has moved to the lunatic fringe, as evidenced by the decision to run Benjamin, a YouTuber with the online pseudonym Sargon of Akkad (not a joke).

A self-proclaimed 'anti-feminist', Benjamin is best known for his involvement in the baffling 2014 Gamergate controversy which advanced a conspiracy theory that feminists were plotting to influence the development of video games.

Now he's used criticism of his rape comments to witter on about breaches of free speech and censorship.

And, just as flies swarm to a particularly juicy cow pat, Benjamin's European election campaign has gained the support of far-right 'activist' Milo Yiannopoulos, whose book deal was cancelled after he suggested that sex between "younger boys" and older men could be a "coming-of-age relationship".

Other members of Ukip seem to dislike Benjamin so much that one of the party's European election candidates, Robert McNeil-Wilson, quit in protest, saying it was no longer a "serious, reasonable, responsible and credible party".

Former leader Nigel Farage, a man hardly known for his liberal views, has branded the party "vile" and said he was forced to leave last year because of current leader Gerard Batten's fixation with anti-Muslim policies.

Ukip has almost negative electoral support in the north. The local elections returned precisely zero councillors for the party.

Yet every time I leave my house in east Belfast I have to pass dozens of yellow posters.

There's a queasy feeling in my stomach every time I see the Ukip symbol hanging from a lamp-post.

Of course there are some people who believe that MPs should just dismiss any online threats.

And that might have once been a viable argument, had an MP not been killed less than three years ago.

Jo Cox was murdered just days by the Brexit referendum in 2016 by a right-wing extremist who repeatedly said "this is for Britain" as he shot and stabbed her.

Last week, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said threats to MPs are at "unprecedented" levels.

Women and MPs from ethnic minority backgrounds are being disproportionately targeted, she said.

She blamed "polarised opinion" on political and social issues.

The problem has got so bad that ministers want to pass a law to create a new crime of intimidating parliamentary candidates and campaigners.

I wonder if those who make threats actually understand the real impact they have. For every person who confines their vile comments to online forums, others feel they have the right to say them aloud.

Ms Phillips said as she left Westminster a man ran alongside her, demanded to know why Benjamin couldn't joke about her rape and shouted "I pay your wages".

The MP said she recently burst into tears in her home city of Birmingham "just because I felt the enormous weight of years and years and years of abuse".

The protection of free speech is a cornerstone of any democracy. But that protection doesn't cover those who want to make threats.

If Ukip really wants to make an impact, it should learn the difference between freedom of speech and hate speech.