A trio of trouble for Ukip: vile views, benefitting from Euro cash and ousting candidates

The extremism:

Ukip leader Nigel Farage proudly poses with a party activist who leads a double life as an open neo-Nazi.

Andrew Lovie, 51, a former secretary of the Aberdeen branch of Ukip, posted a series of vile racist and homophobic rants on a white supremacist website…

He also praises Holocaust denier David Duke’s My Awakening book about anti-semitic theories and calls his internet radio broadcasts “a breath of fresh air for those people of European ancestry”.

In another post he calls voting a privilege not a right, and says “practising homosexuals” should not take part in ballots. [Daily Mirror]

The Euro-cash:

The country estate where Ukip is holding its first Welsh party conference received hundreds of thousands of pounds in EU money.

Local protesters outside the venue pointed out that Margam Park, a historic country estate where Ukip’s conference is taking place, received £218,000 of money from the European Regional Development Fund…

The money was allocated two years ago and was spent renovating the estate’s historic buildings, including the Orangery venue in which the conference is taking place. [Independent]

The candidate ousted in favour of a ‘toff’:

Nigel Farage was last night accused of recruiting ‘toffs for the top’ of Ukip after a candidate in a key target seat expressed fury that he had been ousted in favour of a star of the TV programme Gogglebox…

Now the deposed candidate has given vent to his anger in a leaked email to local party members in which he condemns Ukip’s policy of recruiting defecting Tory MPs and celebrities. Ralph Atkinson calls on Ukip members to bombard Mr Farage with complaints about his treatment, and claims that his party boasts ‘standards of democracy lower than the unelected European Commission’. [Mail]