Web exclusive: “AV is the thin of the wedge, that’s why we support it”

Nigel Farage is in a bullish mood. Also, the True Finns Party has shot a warning at Brussels by winning nearly 19 percent of the vote in a general election. Mr Farage hopes that the combination of an unpopular and insufficiently Eurosceptic coalition government, the EU’s budget increases and the European Court of Human Right’s recent controversies will win him similar victories. “I’ve waited a long time for this. Finally it’s changing,” he says.   
 
Ukip’s lack of success is perplexing, given that 51 percent of Britons think our EU membership is counterproductive. The British may dislike coiffured plutocrats; but, clearly, there’s little more repugnant than the stereotypical Ukipper’s florid face, club tie and sports jacket.
 
Now in his second leadership stint, Mr Farage hopes to cure the party’s image problem and broaden its policy book beyond the single issue of withdrawal from the EU. His canine enthusiasm now focuses on “the whole Ukip philosophy of small government, libertarianism and empowerment”.
 
The “Ukip philosophy” remains a work in progress. A policy review began last May and accelerated when Mr Farage was re-elected in the Autumn. There are firm ideas on limiting immigration and making education selective; but, beyond that, Ukip’s policy book reads like a conversation between Harpo Marx and Marcel Marceau.
 
Its manifesto for this week’s local elections carries a pledge to ‘safeguard the NHS’. There are endless possibilities as to what this might mean. Mr Farage says that it’s just a promise to defend the principle of free care at the point of delivery. Other than that, the details are scant. Mr Farage has identified “the marzipan layer of bureaucracy” as the chief impediment to the NHS and has vows to scrape away the marzipan with a “huge structural reform of NHS commissioning.”
 
Ukip looks perilously close to the hated coalition here.