It's the single question that will decide which side of decency the UK Independence Party fall on; are they a racist party? Whilst UKIP's opponents are right to ask, there is a danger that UKIP will succeed or fail solely on the outcome of this question.
The truth is UKIP are a party of perverse policy aside from the racism they may or may not be guilty of. Far from defining them as a single issue party, those of us in opposition would do much better to expose the full ugliness of UKIP's agenda. The British electorate must realise there are far more reasons to oppose everybody's favourite fringe reactionaries than the questions of racism and immigration.
Farage's free-market frontier would seek to privatise the National Health Service. Some might say we have to admire UKIP's brazenness on this matter but frankly we don't. The Conservatives are often accused of having privatising designs on this bastion of civilised society but UKIP don't even pretend. They wave it in your face along with their other policies and expect you to thank them for being honest and not part of the political class. Farage encourages you one and all to join the people's army. Before you enlist, it might be worth imagining what an army of people without healthcare would look like!
UKIP's crusade against civilisation doesn't end there. Their callous campaign would also abolish the guarantee of maternity rights for women in the workplace! That's right- they really would snatch this right away from women and render them second-class citizens. The ability to produce young is apparently ample provocation for this horrid sexism.
Like any good conservative reactionaries, UKIP is paranoid and has no sense of priority. Farage believes that faith communities are under threat of being forced to conduct homosexual marriages. The evidence; same-sex marriage is now recognised by the state. On his way to alert the Church elders, Farage seems to have missed the draconian nuance David Cameron added to the legislation explicitly banning the Church of England and Wales from conducting said ceremonies. He has also failed to rest easy in the knowledge that we are (unfortunately) a Christian country with an established Church. This means that the CofE and Wales, whose head is our Head of state, is actually being forced to be homophobic! UKIP has either gravely misunderstood this situation and is grossly out of touch with reality or thinks that state-sanctioned homophobia is just too liberal. Whatever the reality, UKIP are a threat to progress.
Finally, Farage wishes to boldly go where Thatcher failed to go before and introduce a flat rate tax for all. I know it's difficult for the reader to believe that everybody's pal-down-the-pub would screw the working man over in this manner but I'm afraid it's true. Farage will only be able to comfortably cradle his tankard of Kentish ale when kitchen porters are in the same tax bracket as millionaires. He and his party are enemies working and struggling families everywhere.
Voters in the European Elections would do well to bear in mind that a vote for UKIP is a vote against women, feminists, secularists, LGBT communities, the working class, the NHS, pretty much anybody who wants a fair society.
Even if UKIP is decided by the electorate to be a non-racist party, this does not exonerate them. There are a multitude of reasons to hate UKIP, and all should be voiced in the fight against them.