DOVER, England (AP) – Saul Webster enjoys a good tipple, and nobody begrudges him one. But that doesn’t make it good politics for the retired schoolteacher to pose for a campaign event with Nigel Farage, the UK Independence Party leader, while carrying a bottle of hard cider and a half-drained glass.
He looks crestfallen as a UKIP functionary discretely removes the drink from his hands before the gathered media horde starts snapping away at Farage and his backers in front of an anti-immigration billboard at the foot of the White Cliffs of Dover.
Farage – the bad boy of British politics – is trying to clean up his image ahead of the May 7 general election. His once surging party has started to languish in the polls and Farage himself admits he is in a dog-fight to try to win his first seat in the British Parliament.
So the UKIP leader is running a tightly focused campaign that relentlessly pushes a single message: Opposition to continued membership in the European Union and the increased immigration that membership has brought. It’s a nationalist theme that is gaining momentum in other major European nations including France and Germany.
Webster is on Farage’s side. After a lifetime supporting the Labour Party, with its socialist roots, the 68-year-old is jumping to UKIP. He agrees that Britain is hosting far too many immigrants from countries like Romania and Bulgaria, both poor EU newcomers whose people have the right to live and work in Britain.