UKIP is forever being insulted. Michael Howard started it off in 2004, by saying that UKIP's members could be called "cranks and gadflies" at the next general election. Cameron's description in 2006 of UKIP as full of "loonies, fruitcakes and closet racists" was worse. Ken Clarke's recent labelling of UKIP as "clowns" backfired almost immediately, not least because Clarke has been badly wrong for many years in his advocacy of UK adoption of the euro. But even journalists have had to get into the act. In the Daily Telegraph Bruce Anderson recently referred to UKIP as "a ragbag of rum coves". 

The established parties, the clerisy and the commentariat do not seem to understand why there is so much popular resentment. All too obviously, they despise many of their fellow citizens. Yes, there is something very "rum" about the developing relationship between Britain and the EU. Our nation is special, with precious traditions of freedom and the rule of law, and a remarkable history of almost 1,000 years of successful resistance to foreign invasion. Yet in the last 40 years Britain's political leadership has handed over more than 20 "competences" — meaning in practice the government of our country — to an alien bureaucracy in a foreign land. That is what is so "rum" about modern British politics. Cannot Howard, Cameron, Clarke and indeed Bruce Anderson appreciate that something has gone very wrong? Can't they see that millions of British people feel betrayed, and want to get back much that was right about Britain?

The difficulty for UKIP, and for the independence movement more generally, is that a referendum vote to leave the EU may be wasted if that vote is secured under a government led by politicians who belong to the Europhile establishment. The great majority of the British people do not want their country absorbed in a European superstate. Surely, that is a given for at least the next two generations. The popular will must be respected and ought ultimately to prevail, however pathetic the politicos in Westminster. The EU is failing and the failures will become more serious and conspicuous as the years go by. In that sense time is on UKIP's side.

There is no need to hurry the agenda of withdrawal and to compromise with other parties for short-term political gain. The objective of full, unconditional independence for the UK does not need to be diluted. It will be better for the independence movement to gain strength, quality and credibility, perhaps over one or two decades, so that in due course a government genuinely committed to EU withdrawal achieves a clear mandate at a general election. In that way the democratic wish for our country to be sovereign and independent can override the Europhile elite.