THE Irish in Britain are lending “substantial and growing support” to UKIP ahead of next month’s European and local elections, Nigel Farage’s party has claimed.
UKIP claim that the party's anti-immigration message is chiming with members of the Irish community in Britain.
The assertions come a week after the party branded Irish people Britain’s “kith and kin” and said they did not consider them to be immigrants.
Patrick O’Flynn, UKIP's Director of Communications, said: "There is substantial and growing support for UKIP among people of Irish extraction and those who have themselves come from the Republic of Ireland to build a life in Britain."
The party declined to tell The Irish Post how many of its 36,000 members have Irish roots or explain the reasons they give for supporting UKIP. The Irish Post asked to interview someone from UKIP, but was told that nobody was available.
The party's claim was backed up by Labour MP John McDonnell, who said he has met a number of Irish UKIP supporters while campaigning in his west London constituency ahead of the May 22 elections.
But he warned that it would be an “easy step” for the party’s vehemently anti-immigration campaigning to move from targeting Eastern Europeans to Irish people.
“I think people need to wake up to that threat,” said Mr McDonnell, who has Irish roots himself.
“If they [UKIP] ever do get any purchase on power in local authorities or in Europe or in parliament, Irish people need to realise that when right wing politicians bring out the rhetoric, we could become the scapegoats after the others.”
The MP for Hayes and Harlington added that Irish support for UKIP was “ironic” because “it could be us in the firing line, not Romanians and Bulgarians”.
“The equivalent of UKIP, only 20 or 30 years ago, were blaming the Irish because we were the migrants; the BNP, the National Front, and every other right wing politician,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Chris Ruane, who chairs the Irish in Britain All-Party Parliamentary Group, expressed his “disgrace” at comments last week by a UKIP council candidate who said comedian Lenny Henry should move to a “black country”.
“I am the proud son of an Irish immigrant and I would remind people of Irish descent or Irish abstraction that it was not too long ago that similar comments were being made about the Irish,” he said.
Despite the Labour Party's concerns, anti-fascist group Hope not Hate said it had not seen any evidence of UKIP following far-right parties like the BNP and National Front in expressing anti-Irish sentiments.
Matthew Collins, the organisation’s Northern Irish correspondent, said: “They say stupid things about immigrants and black people like Lenny Henry, but we have not come across and deep-rooted anti-Irish attitudes.
“It is a unionist party that favours the union between Britain and Northern Ireland, but that is it. And that just puts them on an even footing with all the other mainstream parties.”
UKIP’s Mr O’Flynn responded to the comments by saying: “Rather than taking instruction from a Labour MP about how to vote, I know that Irish people in Britain will judge the issues on their merits and vote accordingly."
The debate over UKIP’s Irish support comes a week after the party was branded “racist” and plunged into a number of scandals following the launch of its high-profile anti-immigration poster campaign.
It was forced to expel builder Andre Lampitt, who features in one of its election broadcasts, after it was revealed that he posted a number of racist and anti-Muslim messages on Twitter.
He described Islam as an evil religion with a paedophile prophet and said peace would come “when Aids does what it should and reduce African density”.
Meanwhile, UKIP council candidate William Henwood resigned from the party after reports emerged that he said Lenny Henry should move to a “black country” because of his comments about the lack of people from ethnic minorities in Britain’s creative industries.
He also compared Islam to Nazi Germany.
A fresh row emerged yesterday (Tuesday) after it was revealed that another UKIP candidate, David Wycherley, questioned why London 2012 star Mo Farah is able to represent Britain because he is “African”.
UKIP also provoked controversy among the Irish community last year when one of its councillors said he hoped someone would ‘slit Gerry Adams’ throat’.
But the party has claimed that it does not view Irish people as immigrants and instead considers them Britain’s “kith and kin” because of two countries’ shared history.
“I do not anticipate any suggestion that the Irish would be expected to join the work permit scheme for immigrants,” a spokesperson said last week.
Mr Collins of Hope not Hate added that it was not new for a party that campaigns against immigration to draw support from Irish people in Britain.
The BNP and National Front both had a “bizarrely high” number of second and third generation Irish members, claimed Mr Collins, who is himself of Irish descent and joined the National Front as a teenager before writing a book about the growth of far-right parties in Britain.
Mr McDonnell said that he blamed his party for causing “disgruntled” Irish people to turn to UKIP.
“I think the rise of UKIP is largely the fault of the Labour Party, which is not demonstrating just how unfair society is at the moment and providing a set of policies to tackle that unfairness,” he explained.
“I think a large number of Irish people have been at the sharp end of the recession. A lot of our people are working in manufacturing, construction, a whole range of trades and professions, and they have been hit really hard by the recession.”
In order to win back those Irish voters who are considering voting for UKIP in the May elections, he said the Labour Party needed to produce a series of “radical” policies.
That would include a wealth tax, continued public ownership of banks and the reversal of reforms rolled out by the current that have led to increased “privatisation” of the NHS, Mr McDonnell added.
