On Sunday 10 May Andrew Marr interviewed Nigel Farage MEP, Leader, United Kingdom Independence Party
Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.
ANDREW MARR:
Nigel Farage MEP, Leader, United Kingdom Independence Party
Now, the chill meltdown over MPs at Westminster and their expenses has rather overshadowed, as we were saying, the start of the election campaign for the European parliament, long regarded as even more of a gravy train.
Last time round the UK Independence Party, UKIP, was the big success story returning twelve MEPs, since then the party has had a few struggles with factionalism although its leader Nigel Farage remains upbeat as ever I'm sure.
Welcome.
NIGEL FARAGE:
Thank you.
ANDREW MARR:
Last time round your high point possibly?
NIGEL FARAGE:
Well they said that in ninety nine. We won three seats from nowhere in ninety nine and we were told that would never be repeated. We did phenomenally well last time round.
The big difference - and it's the BBC itself through their opinion polling which show that what UKIP stands for, namely that we shouldn't be part of political union with Europe but should have a trade agreement and cooperate with our neighbours is now the majority view of the British people in this country.
Now the challenge for us is to try and make sure over the course of the next four weeks that we have a proper national debate. Because my feeling is that Labour and the Conservatives and Lib Dems would rather not discuss the European dimension of our lives.
ANDREW MARR:
The Tories would say they've got the most Eurosceptic leadership and the most Eurosceptic parliamentary party and the most Eurosceptic MPs ...
NIGEL FARAGE:
No.
ANDREW MARR:
...they've ever had and that they will offer this country a referendum.
NIGEL FARAGE:
Well they're not doing that. They're saying there'll be a referendum but only if the Irish vote no in the second referendum. If the Irish vote yes in a second referendum then we'll just jolly well have to put up with it. I mean that simply isn't good enough. You know what we're saying is look, it's been over thirty years since this country had a say.
Nobody who voted yes in nineteen seventy five could have imagined that seventy five per cent plus of our laws would now be made in West.. would now be made not in Westminster but in Brussels. Nobody would have imagined how much it's cost. It's time we had a proper debate.
ANDREW MARR:
Yeah. You've lost, you lost three of the MEPs that were elected in different ways ...
NIGEL FARAGE:
Yeah.
ANDREW MARR:
.. including through some fraud and so on. And there seems to be a sort of constant and very, very angry argument going on inside your party. Why?
NIGEL FARAGE:
I wouldn't accept that. I mean look, the one thing I would say is this. Every party, just as every family, every company, has its bad apples. The question is how do you deal with them. And in UKIP we haven't tried to brush things under the carpet. We haven't tried to protect anybody. When people have broken faith with us we've simply got rid of them which is a marked contrast I think to the way that the big parties are handling the current expenses crisis. We have a faction of UKIP of what I would call generally angry old man who would like the Party to be negative in everything that it does.
I'm not being negative. Look I don't want to be part of this political union with Europe because I think we've got bigger opportunities across the world. I think we can deregulate the British economy, be far better off and far more self confident. Now if some people don't like that approach, well so be it. And it's changed Andrew. I mean look you know we've had all these accusations that some were we're a very right wing party. Of our candidates standing for us in these European elections we've got young people, we've got many more women, we've got five black and Asian candidates. It's, it's a very much more diverse UKIP.
ANDREW MARR:
So is it fair to say that your prime focus in terms of trying to reshape the Party's image has been that that jibe about "They were the British National Party ...
NIGEL FARAGE:
Yeah.
ANDREW MARR:
... in blazers" is the most damaging thing you ..
NIGEL FARAGE:
Yes I ...
ANDREW MARR:
.. want to turn round?
NIGEL FARAGE:
Yes absolutely. It was very damaging. It did stick. It was never true. You know we've always been a non-racist, non-sectarian party and this time round I think it's very difficult for anybody to give us those accusations.
ANDREW MARR:
Now if you don't get the same number of MEPs as last time you're going to step down as leader?
NIGEL FARAGE:
Well if we fail in these elections then the Party will have to find somebody else. But I don't think we are going to fail in these elections. I think once the debate kicks off, once people realise, you know we can't even control who comes to live, work and settle in this country as members of this European Union. Once we have that debate over the course of the next few weeks I am confident that we will do very well, so well in fact that I think we've got a chance of beating the Labour Party. The Labour Party may well come in fourth place in these elections. Goodness me, it could be UKIP that gets rid of Gordon Brown.
ANDREW MARR:
Which would be an extraordinary thing. And you ...
NIGEL FARAGE:
And would serve him right for not giving us the referendum that he promised us.
ANDREW MARR:
And you feel that all the things that the Conservatives have done to sort of take Europe more serious and all the rest of it that that's not, that's not going to kind of persuade people to vote Conservative rather than UKIP?
NIGEL FARAGE:
None of it's worth a light. Just one example - the Common Fisheries policy. The Conservatives were saying two or three years ago that they'd take back our territorial waters. Now they're saying they accept us being part of it. This is not a Euro-sceptic Conservative Party in terms of its leadership. But in terms of its membership and its voters, it very much is.
ANDREW MARR:
Last time round you had old Robert Kilroy-Silk ...
NIGEL FARAGE:
Oh I'd forgotten about ...
ANDREW MARR:
... in every single advert, all over the place. He's gone. Has that been a blow?
NIGEL FARAGE:
The one thing that Kilroy did for us is that UKIP became a household name and people knew who we were and what we stood for and that gives us a big advantage coming into these elections. I'm just disappointed that he took himself rather too seriously.
ANDREW MARR:
Nigel Farage, no one's going to accuse you of that. Thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning.
INTERVIEW ENDS
Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.
NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.
Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy
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