For me, they started with Andrew Edwards (aka Richard English), the BNP supporter outed by the party some time ago. Rather than being embarassed at his public outing and keeping himself to himself, he still sends unsolicited emails espousing the BNP and criticising UKIP to a long list of people both in the party and in the media claiming to be a disgrunteld UKIP supporter. Nothing he ever writes appears in newspapers but he still plugs away doing his bit for Nick Griffin and his jackbooted colleagues.
After Andrew Edwards' emails stopped coming, emails from "UKIP Truth" mysteriously started appearing instead. Sent from a relatively anonymous Google mail account (Richard English was confirmed to be an alter ego of Andrew Edwards by some simple forensic work on his emails) UKIP Truth claims to be:
a collective of members who believe that the cause of UKIP is a noble and honest one, but are becoming increasingly disillusioned with corruption and lack of effective strategy coming from the leadership
Quite. And the best way to support the party you are a member of is to send unsolicited, anonymous emails to members with exclusively negative comments and made up "sleaze".
Take the latest one, for example:
It would seem in preparation for the European Elections next year Nigel has appointed a press officer who lives in Europe, Portugal to be precise.[...]Timmy Tax-Exile (henceforth known as TEX) will not be spending his time schmoozing with the British Press as this might impact upon his tax status, but instead will be concentrating on his "Blog" which he can happily do from his villa on the Algarve.
Meanwhile, on the British Democracy Forum earlier this month, "Timmy Tax Exile" had this to say:
I am currently in Portugal. I shall be in London full time from 2 weeks hence. There's not a great deal of point in being in London when Parliament isn't sitting and all the political journalists are spread around the country at the various party conferences. I would still be (am in fact) a long distance phone call away from them all.
Portugal isn't exactly a tax haven so I'm not sure the tax exile label is quite deserved, especially bearing in mind that he'd be paying tax on the money he earns here in England. Regardless of that, there's nothing wrong with living abroad, enjoying the sunshine, the more relaxed pace of life and lower taxes. Sounds more like jealousy to me - I know I am!
The more UKIP challenges the eurofederalist establishment, the more people like this will crawl out of the woodwork to make co-ordinated attacks on the party. "Tax Exile Timmy" smacks of left wing jealousy and clearly isn't even true.
The best thing to do with these troublemakers is tell them what you think of them and then sit back and ignore the inevitable ranting you will get in return.
wonkotsane is an author at Bloggers4UKIP.
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