Ukip’s overt anti-Muslim bigotry has a bright side: it could bury the party | Miqdaad Versi

What do the burqa, sharia law, Islamic faith schools, so-called honour violence and FGM have in common? Answer: they all represent an urgent threat to the country, according to Ukip. They are central to its integration agenda, which from the outside looks like an attempt to corner the market in racist posturing before any other party gets the chance. Bashing Muslims brings in votes – so Ukip seems to think.

Policies include a ban on wearing face coverings in public and a ban on opening new Islamic faith schools in the state sector until Muslims can demonstrate “they” have made “substantial progress” on integrating into British society.

As if that were not persecutory enough, Ukip’s proposals include regularly singling out children from minority groups at school for examinations to check that they haven’t been genitally cut.

Over and above the prejudice masquerading as an attempt to tackle some undoubtedly serious issues, the policies are wholly impractical. FGM experts such as Daughters of Eve believe introducing checks on girls from at-risk communities would be an invasion of privacy that would create “second-class citizens”. And it is unclear how targeting Islamic faith schools would not fall foul of equality legislation. Even beekeepers are raising concerns about the applicability of the proposed ban on face coverings in public.

As voters have already started deserting the party for the Conservatives in droves, its dominant figures have clearly been asking what it can do to stop any further haemorrhaging of support. The anti-EU and anti-immigration party faces an existential crisis in the upcoming general election. With the path to Brexit to assured, what is Ukip supposed to be for, exactly?

It clearly cannot claim to be seeking a patriotic but outward-looking country that celebrates all its citizens. It’s not surprising, then, to find it moving even further to the right, deploying a heightened anti-Muslim and anti-migrant rhetoric that even the Conservative party wouldn’t be able to stomach. Indeed, as you peel away its opposition to the European Union, you find sticky layers of anti-Muslim bigotry.

Over the past few years, Ukip members and elected officials have spewed out a consistent stream of anti-Muslim hatred. One member, Ken Chapman, said: “Islam is a cancer that needs eradicating … clear them all off to the desert.” Robert Brown, a Ukip town councillor in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, labelled Muslims “evil” in his online rants. After the comedian Lenny Henry said there should be more black and ethnic minority people in creative industries, candidate William Henwood said Henry should move to a “black country”. Ukip has said candidates and members are expected to uphold the party’s non-racist and non-sectarian values. William Henwood resigned from Ukip after his remarks, which a party spokesman said had caused “enormous offence”.

One might argue that these are merely examples of individual behaviour, and the whole party should not be tarred by the actions of a small minority. Even its funder Arron Banks has criticised Ukip’s anti-Muslim shift.

The unfortunate reality, however, is that these sentiments – at least to some extent – lie not at the margins but in the very heart of the party. After all, the former leader Nigel Farage called British Muslims a “fifth column”, and promoted the “breaking point” poster that many claimed incited racial hatred.

Yet the launch of Ukip’s “integration agenda” has taken the party even closer to the overt and unashamed bigotry of the British National party and the English Defence League, preying on the very worst prejudices of their jift

voters.

These developments are extremely worrying. But they offer some hope: that the shift in Ukip’s focus will lead to it suffering the same fate as the EDL and BNP before it – sliding into electoral oblivion.

The alternative – that this kind of vicious, counterproductive anti-Muslim rhetoric is becoming part of normal political discourse – paints a very dark picture of Britain’s future.