Rifkind concerned by UKIP
Former Conservative Party Foreign Secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, has compared supporters of the UK Independence Party to those who paved the way for Adolf Hitler’s ascendancy in 1930s Germany.
Speaking at a fringe meeting with UKIP supporters at the Conservative Party conference last week, Sir Malcolm said: “You imply that so strong are your views that you don’t care what happens at the next election.
“That is the kind of argument used in 1930s Germany by the people who said: ‘Let Hitler come into power, he’ll destroy the Communists and the rest of us will be better off.'”
His comments reflect the concern among Conservative rank-and-file members that UKIP is a force to be reckoned with and one that could derail the Conservatives’ effort to return to power.
UKIP pushed the Conservatives into a humiliating fourth place in the recent Hartlepool by-election.
Sir Malcolm warned squabbling between UKIP and the Conservatives for the anti-Europe vote may clear the way for Labour’s easy return to office at the next general election, with the “disastrous” result that Britain would pen the European Constitution and adopt the euro.
Sir Malcolm is set to return to Parliament at the next election as MP for the safe Conservative seat of Kensington and Chelsea.
UKIP MEP, Robert Kilroy-Silk, has said he intends to “kill off” the Conservatives.
Meanwhile, Chris Patten, the outgoing European Commissioner for External Relations, downplayed the severity of the UKIP threat.
He told The Independent: “UKIP got 10 per cent in the Hartlepool by-election and the Liberal Democrats got 34 per cent. Which is the target for a serious party?
But he criticised the Conservative leadership for “flirting” with UKIP and called instead for an alternative tactic of attacking the anti-Europe party head on.
Mr Patten said UKIP represented “a particularly unattractive, blazered, xenophobia.”
“They live in a fantasy world of conspiracies against gallant Blighty, white cliffs, Dambusters, Panzer helmets, a world in which every foreigner is a threat, a world which is totally at variance with the one in which we have to earn our living and keep the peace.”
