Anti-EU challenger fights Conservatives on the beaches

By Andrew Osborn RAMSGATE, England (Reuters) - Thanet, a spur of southern England jutting into the North Sea, has been run by Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party for 117 of the last 130 years. This year however, upstart right-wing challenger UKIP thinks it can grab it on May 7. The mainly coastal region is rich in history: troops sailed from its shores to defeat Napoleon Bonaparte at the 1815 Battle of Waterloo and fighter pilots roared out from its chalky cliffs to repel the Nazis during the Second World War. But in recent years Thanet has been hit by an influx of East European immigrants and poor people on welfare, placed by local authorities into dirt-cheap housing which has resulted from the decline of the area's tourist industry. The loss of local jobs, angst about immigrants and dented national pride has resulted in a huge swing towards the UK Independence Party, as UKIP is fully known, threatening the traditional balance of Britain's political power and Cameron's party in particular. UKIP wants Britain to quit the European Union, to slash immigration and to return the world's sixth largest economy to what supporters say was once a proud self-governing nation. "We were the finest country in the world and it's gradually been taken away from us," sums up Bob Pryor, a 58-year-old retired train driver who says he plans to vote UKIP. Current polls show that UKIP's leader Nigel Farage, a 50-year-old beer-drinking former commodities trader, has a strong chance of winning in South Thanet in May's national election and of depriving Conservative candidate Craig Mackinlay of victory. But the threat isn't just in Thanet. UKIP, which includes many former Conservatives, is sometimes compared to the Tea Party movement that shook up the right-wing Republican party in the United States. It won European elections in Britain last year and now poses a country-wide problem for Cameron's centre-right party ahead of a British election that is one of the closest in recent history. While UKIP is unlikely to win more than six of Britain's 650 parliamentary seats, polls show it is stealing more votes from the Conservatives than from their left-wing opponents Labour. With Conservative and Labour neck-and-neck in the same polls, the Prime Minister's party fears UKIP will split its vote and make it tougher for it to win outright. Britain's future in the EU and its territorial integrity are on the line. The rise of UKIP put pressure on Cameron to pledge a national referendum on the country's EU membership by 2017. If UKIP-style thinking takes hold and Britain later votes to leave the EU, Scotland may again try to leave the United Kingdom after nationalists lost last year's vote. "UKIP could deprive the Conservatives of a majority across the country," Mackinlay said. "The UKIP effect could be very damaging." 'A BETTER BRITAIN' Around 80 miles southeast of London, South Thanet's natural beauty, abundance of light, and dramatic seascapes once attracted crowds of holiday makers and artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and William Turner. But the area, which includes the upscale seaside resort of Broadstairs, the port of Ramsgate, and a sliver of the resort town of Margate, has been in decline since the 1980s when the advent of cheap air travel hit it hard. Now Ramsgate's seafront is marked by ugly metal struts sprouting from concrete blocks, evidence of a construction site that's been derelict for over a decade. Ramsgate port, which once hosted passenger and freight ferries to Europe, stands empty and the town's fishing fleet has been laid waste, the fishermen say, by EU catch quotas. "It's not the town that I remember," says Pryor of Ramsgate, lamenting the closure of cinemas, theatres, hotels and bars. He feels UKIP is the town's last hope. Farage, a former Conservative, told supporters last year: "I'll help put this place that's at the end of the line, a bit forgotten, a bit left behind, and I hope I can help put it back on the map." At a more recent gathering this month, he again harked back to better times, telling rapturous mostly elderly supporters that Britain was "better than virtually anything else that the world has ever created." Laura Sandys, the outgoing Conservative lawmaker whose ancestor was Ramsgate MP in 1608, acknowledges Farage is tapping into discontent but argues that the situation in areas such as Thanet is starting to improve. Rundown areas are being regenerated, plans are afoot to cut the journey time to London, unemployment is falling, and national welfare reform is taking place, said Sandys. 'PUT OUR OWN FIRST' Farage pleases some local voters with his stance on immigration, which has brought criticism from other quarters that his comments and those of his councillors veer into racism. A TV documentary this month showed a UKIP Thanet councillor saying she had a problem with "negroes" and wouldn't sit next to someone who was black at dinner. She was expelled. Farage denies his party is racist but says immigration is a problem. In South Thanet, which has fewer immigrants than the national average, that message connects with some locals who are angry that Cameron promised but failed to reduce net migration to less than 100,000 a year. Instead, it's running at record levels. "This isn't about disliking anyone else it's about saying we should put our own people first every single time," said Farage at the recent meeting with supporters. "I want back our democracy, and crucially I want back control of our borders (from the EU)," he added. UKIP has been criticised for lacking a full range of policies, a point it will try to blunt by releasing its policy manifesto at a conference in Thanet this weekend. Negative publicity has begun to soften UKIP's poll rating, but Farage, a savvy media operator, remains confident, while predicting its "massive" breakthrough may only come at the next election in 2020. If UKIP splits South Thanet's right-wing vote but doesn't grab enough of a margin to win, the area's Labour candidate Will Scobie could find himself catapulted into the seat. He's reluctant to say the "UKIP effect" will help him. But he does hope a loss for Farage would make Thanet UKIP's graveyard rather than its springboard. "He is the person who's dragged UKIP from just being another minor party to actually have the possibility of winning a few seats," said Scobie. "If he loses, that could be the end of UKIP." (Editing by Sophie Walker)