Nick Cohen changes his mind

(Note to self: stop banging on about UKIP.)

Nick Cohen, last Sunday:

Dr Alan Sked, [UKIP's] founder, left in a huff, and said of his fellow party members 'they are racist and have been infected by the far right'. He backed-up his claim by telling the Mail on Sunday that Nigel Farage, the co-founder and leader of the Ukip group of members of the European Parliament, had once told him that 'we will never win the nigger vote. The nig-nogs will never vote for us.'

Accusations of collusion with the BNP or infiltration by BNP members pop-up continually, and the racial hatred of outsiders is matched by the personal hatred of each other...

You might think Kilroy's decision to denounce his former friends as 'right wing fascist nutters' was a rare outburst of good sense from the bronzed braggart...

Nick Cohen, for the purposes of slagging off Respect and pretending the BNP don't matter, Sunday 6 June, 2004:

Until a few weeks ago few in the Westminster village noticed the far more significant right-wing phenomenon of the United Kingdom Independence Party. But whatever you think of its policies, UKIP is respectable and can appeal to the respectable working and middle classes. None of its leading members has served a prison term - not even Robert Kilroy Silk.