Letter from Roger Knapman

THE leader of the UK Independence party (Ukip) has been accused by his predecessor of "selling out" its eurosceptic principles to secure a plush new office.

Roger Knapman said that Nigel Farage, his fellow member of the European parliament (MEP) who replaced him as party leader last September, has ignored the values that "prevent us getting dragged into the comfortable EU world that leads down the path to 'going native'."

"I cannot stand quietly and idly by forever if our basic principles are sold down the river," he said.

Knapman's criticism is contained in a letter to the party's ruling national executive committee (NEC) which was sent following Farage's decision to sign a declaration espousing the principle of "subsidiarity".

Ukip has always been in favour of total withdrawl from the EU, but accepting the principle of subsidiarity means accepting the authority of the union to take decisions which are not devolved to national or regional government.

The agreement containing acceptance of subsidiarity was signed in Bucharest last month between members of the European parliament's Independence/Democracy Group, (IndDem) to which Ukip belongs, and Romania's National Initiative party (Pin).

At the same time Ukip also signed up to the principle of "reforming" the Common Agricultural Policy, something which it has previously refused to recognise at all.

The IndDem group signed the declaration because it hopes to recruit the Pin's MEPs to its ranks later this year to keep its numbers sufficiently high and thereby ensure its status as a "group".

Most of the EU parliament's party funding is given to these groups, which must contain at least 20 MEPs. The IndDem group, which has 23 members, is precariously near the cut-off point.

Thanks to additional funding, the IndDem group, including Ukip, is set to move to new offices next month but such benefits would disappear if enough of its MEPs were to split off.

Knapman wrote in his letter on May 13: "I, and a number of my colleagues, cannot in all conscience accept something which represents a major departure from what we believed to be Ukip's policy — withdrawal from the EU, a complete rejection of its authority (and subsidiarity) and of the Common Agricultural Policy."

He also accused the party of sending its MEPs on "junkets" and employing their wives as assistants, apparently contrary to an internal Ukip agreement made in 2004. Farage employs his wife Kirsten as a £24,000-a-year home-based secretary using his parliamentary allowance.

Knapman wrote: "I am now very worried that this agreement is being ignored and that the attractions of the European parliament as a career may beckon to some; where the delights of plush new office suites, Brussels titles and internal parliament or IndDem Group politics are more attractive than our original purpose."

Farage, who as co-chairman of the IndDem group is entitled to a chauffeur-driven car which he says he has never used, said: "The fact that the Pin party platform calls for greater decentralisaton back from Brussels to Bucharest is one that we can fully endorse and I don't understand what Roger is talking about.

"Roger is saying in his letter that we shouldn't be supporting people who believe in subsidiarity. I would rather we weren't in the EU but we are all the while we are in it we would rather it was decentralised.

"Ukip votes for things if they reduce power at the centre. I think Roger was confused."

He denied any Ukip MEPs went on junkets and said there had been no agreement about not employing their wives.

"Roger's letter was put before the NEC and they thought the Bucharest declaration was exactly the right thing to have done."

He denied party members were "going native". Farage said: "My bank balance does not tell me that, in fact quite the reverse. It is an absolutely nonsensical idea.

"Roger is suffering from high blood pressure and is not well."

Times Recommends

• Milk: do we need a dairy godmother?
• DIY: the women doing it for themselves
• First double portrait of Princes unveiled