UKIP’s attitude to accountability should worry us all

UKIP’s reaction to the allegations over the use of the party’s EU funding has been telling. It tells us that they are not yet ready to take the step up from a being an assortment of oddballs and cranks to a serious political party.

After The Times ran their front page on Tuesday, UKIP’s immediate reaction was to denounce the paper as a mouthpiece for the establishment, rather than bother to refute what they felt was incorrect about the article. They even went so far as to produce a list of Times journalists and the reasons why they must suffer from such rabid anti-UKIP bias. These reasons bypassed logic and headed straight for good old-fashioned, barrel-scraping non-sequiturs, including being “privately educated”. Why having a private education would necessarily lead to launching a vendetta against a party with a privately-educated leader is a question that goes sadly unanswered.

For this to be their first thought though, to reach so eagerly for the reasoning marked ‘conspiracy’, is a revealing insight into the psychology of UKIP. It is the psychology of the fringe parties and political extremists, one that perceives a ruling elite that holds no moral authority to question actions or motives of those who stand opposed to it. Any attempt to hold The Outsiders to account is, they believe, driven by self-preservation and because The Establishment feels threatened.

It is a dangerous mentality, especially when they are elected and we are left with representatives who think they are above being held accountable. Whether the charges against UKIP amount to anything serious is by this stage, frankly, beside the point. That our elected officials are willing to be subjected to the full rigour of the democratic process is much more important. There is no room for petty autocrats here.

For UKIP, it seems they do not even hold their members in high enough esteem for their queries over the party’s funding to be deemed worthy of a response more dignified than “shut up”.

If this is how they UKIP react now, it should concern us all that they might make serious gains in the European elections. In a system that is already desperately lacking in real accountability, to give yet more power to the type of pub bore who views anyone disagreeing with them as an attempt to have their opinions silenced would be a dire state of affairs. We cannot let this attitude take hold.