:00:02. > :00:12.war. Now on BBC News, it's time for
:00:12. > :00:19.
:00:19. > :00:24.Welcome to HARDtalk. When voters feel angry they look for ways to
:00:24. > :00:27.punish their political masters. That is one powerful factor behind
:00:27. > :00:31.the rise of the UK Independence Party, UKIP, a populist anti-EU,
:00:31. > :00:39.anti-immigration movement fuelled by frustration with the status quo.
:00:39. > :00:43.My guest today is UKIP's Treasurer Stuart Wheeler. Like many UKIP
:00:43. > :00:53.followers he used to support the Conservatives. So, how can he
:00:53. > :01:17.
:01:17. > :01:23.justify the damage he's now doing Stuart Wheeler, welcome to HARDtalk.
:01:23. > :01:30.Thank you. There's no doubt that your party UKIP is enjoying a surge
:01:30. > :01:34.in support. But without rise comes new scrutiny. Do you think you are
:01:34. > :01:39.ready for the scrutiny that is coming your way? We are not
:01:39. > :01:43.completely ready. All our policies are up for consideration, like all
:01:43. > :01:50.other party policies at the moment. But we are going to be ready for
:01:50. > :01:54.the scrutiny when it comes. One of your senior MEPs, Godfrey Bloom,
:01:54. > :01:59.earlier this year was involved in an e-mail exchange with you,
:01:59. > :02:03.discussing the organisation of the party. I paraphrase, he said that
:02:03. > :02:07.when more than two UKIP activists get together it is impossible to
:02:07. > :02:12.get any decisions made. He said organising the party was like
:02:12. > :02:15.herding cats. I am not sure he was referring specifically to our party
:02:15. > :02:20.as opposed to others. But of course when you have a lot of people
:02:20. > :02:26.together, not just two, they all tend to think of themselves as
:02:26. > :02:32.experts on whatever particular piece of policy is being discussed.
:02:32. > :02:38.And they are happy to discuss their own views. A lot of your members
:02:38. > :02:43.have prejudice, don't they? I am not sure what you mean by that. A
:02:43. > :02:46.lot of people have prejudice. You have to define that. If one looks
:02:47. > :02:51.at the record of some of your members, some of your activists,
:02:51. > :02:56.they have had links with the British National Party, others have
:02:56. > :03:02.expressed it... Hold on.Others have expressed fears that are
:03:02. > :03:07.openly her -- anti-homosexual. sure there is the odd person in our
:03:07. > :03:13.party, like there is undoubtedly in every other party, who is anti-
:03:13. > :03:17.homosexual, and he this and that. we are more prejudice in that kind
:03:17. > :03:22.of way than others. We are the only party that makes it a rule that if
:03:22. > :03:26.you have been a member of the BNP, however long ago, you can't be a
:03:26. > :03:31.number of UKIP. But it seems there are people who were members of the
:03:31. > :03:35.MP who want to be members of UKIP and, during the last council
:03:35. > :03:39.election can -- campaign, several got into positions where they were
:03:39. > :03:46.candidates for your party. And then you had to vet them post facto and
:03:46. > :03:50.tell them they could not run. had about 1,700 candidates. We are
:03:50. > :03:53.not big enough to make a close investigation of every candidate. I
:03:53. > :03:59.don't know about several. A couple did get through without Al
:03:59. > :04:03.realising it, that is true. When you tell me you don't have any
:04:03. > :04:06.truck with former BNP people, you don't really know. Because you have
:04:06. > :04:10.just said your vetting procedures are not capable of reading those
:04:10. > :04:16.people out. There were two people we fail to weed out. In future we
:04:16. > :04:21.will be better. Two isn't bad. I am not worried about that. We are the
:04:21. > :04:28.only party that has that rule, that says something, doesn't it? It says
:04:28. > :04:32.you are committed to something you can't deliver. We can deliver...
:04:32. > :04:35.Justice as well as any other party. I am sure there are some members of
:04:35. > :04:41.the BNP that are now part of the Conservative Party. They don't have
:04:41. > :04:46.the rule against it. Going back to issues about homosexuality. One
:04:46. > :04:53.loud activists in the south of England recently declared gay sex
:04:53. > :04:57.to be disgusting on a website. He said, what irritates me is the way
:04:57. > :05:02.they, homosexuals, and their lefty followers want to force the rest of
:05:02. > :05:09.us to consider them as normal. Has he been chucked out of the party?
:05:09. > :05:14.He has not been. He is rather up to four -- express himself forcibly. I
:05:14. > :05:19.disagree with what he says. The party disagrees with what he has
:05:19. > :05:23.said. But people can express their own views. So, there is room for
:05:23. > :05:28.what many would call homophobia inside your party? $YELLOW Only in
:05:28. > :05:33.the sense that in any party people are allowed to express their views.
:05:33. > :05:36.There's no more room in our party than any other party. I think he
:05:36. > :05:41.would find that in other parties, people deemed to be homophobic
:05:41. > :05:44.would be told they are no longer welcome. I don't know whether that
:05:44. > :05:50.is true. I haven't seen this particular thing that you have
:05:50. > :05:56.quoted to me. I presume you got it right. Was that recently? It was.
:05:56. > :05:59.Nigel Farage saw it and he said, to those who said this man had no
:05:59. > :06:02.place in UKIP, if you are suggesting we should become so
:06:02. > :06:06.politically correct that we keep out anyone who holds a slightly
:06:06. > :06:13.old-fashioned view, frankly that would be the death of debate in
:06:13. > :06:18.politics in Britain. I think that is right. There is room for people
:06:18. > :06:26.who are anti- homosexual. There is room for prejudice? Inside your
:06:26. > :06:30.party? In any party. You can't pick out your party based on who is
:06:30. > :06:34.prejudiced and to is not. You have a small example of instances but I
:06:34. > :06:38.am sure you could find that in the Conservatives, Labour or Lib Dems.
:06:38. > :06:43.Let's talk about organisation. When I opened up this idea that you are
:06:43. > :06:48.under new scrutiny, you also face new challenges. A soaring poll
:06:48. > :06:52.rating and more councillors than perhaps you anticipated after local
:06:52. > :06:57.elections. Organisation becomes much more important. It does indeed.
:06:57. > :07:02.And money. You know a lot about money. You are the treasurer of the
:07:02. > :07:05.party. I believe in the last quarter you raised something like
:07:05. > :07:09.�75,000. He's that sort of money going to be enough to turn you into
:07:09. > :07:15.a credible national party? -- is that. Our income in the last
:07:15. > :07:19.quarter was well over that. I am talking about raised donations.
:07:19. > :07:22.need to increase the amount of money. You could not be more right.
:07:22. > :07:29.We have substantially. But one thing that has helped us is our
:07:29. > :07:33.membership went up from 200 in early December to around 26,500
:07:33. > :07:37.today. They all pay their subscriptions. If we get an extra
:07:37. > :07:45.100 members every day, as we have been, that will help and it is
:07:45. > :07:49.already helping. What you need is a really massive supportive donor,
:07:49. > :07:54.somebody very rich. Use it before the as the man who gave the single
:07:54. > :07:57.biggest political donation in the history of the United Kingdom. �5
:07:57. > :08:02.million. But you gave it to the Conservative Party when he
:08:02. > :08:06.supported them. That is true. I was a great deal more which them then
:08:06. > :08:12.and now. How much are you prepared to give UKIP to deliver the victory
:08:12. > :08:20.you want? Nobody has ever given promises about the future. But I
:08:20. > :08:24.have given them over the past, whatever the period is, a bit over
:08:24. > :08:29.half a million. Less than one-tenth of what you gave the Conservatives.
:08:29. > :08:32.As I said, my circumstances are very different. I don't want to go
:08:32. > :08:37.too far into a personal bank statements but I find your
:08:37. > :08:41.philosophy interesting because UKIP prides itself on, in a sense,
:08:41. > :08:44.challenging the political elites and the political establishment.
:08:44. > :08:48.But your personal message how -- has always been that if you have
:08:48. > :08:51.money and you want to spend it in politics, you should be free to
:08:51. > :08:57.spend and give as much as you like and get the influence that comes
:08:57. > :09:00.with that. Is that still your view? You are exactly right. That is my
:09:00. > :09:04.view. Dozen that innocence sit uneasily with the notion that UKIP
:09:04. > :09:07.is trying to bring down the old political elite? I don't see the
:09:07. > :09:11.connection. But you are saying money in politics is a good thing
:09:11. > :09:17.and should continue. I think people should spend their money as they
:09:17. > :09:21.want, including giving it to a political party. So, the rich and
:09:21. > :09:26.ultra rich should continue to have come up with all intents and
:09:26. > :09:30.purposes, an inside track to those in power? Win is a inside track,
:09:30. > :09:36.first of all they should not have an inside track to being a peer or
:09:36. > :09:40.anything like that. -- When you say. That should be stopped. But also in
:09:40. > :09:44.business. They should not be able to buy business favours because
:09:44. > :09:49.that should be made public, in the same way that MPs have to register
:09:49. > :09:53.their business interests, so I believe should be donors. OK. We
:09:53. > :09:57.have spoken about organisation and the nature of your membership.
:09:57. > :10:03.Let's not talk about the policies. That is what matters most to any
:10:03. > :10:07.political party. And let's start, as we have to come up with Europe.
:10:07. > :10:13.That is the foundation stone of UKIP. The notion, as your party
:10:13. > :10:18.sees it, that Britain must sever its ties with the European Union.
:10:18. > :10:22.Now, you have made a transition on this because, even a couple of
:10:22. > :10:27.years ago, you were not sure that Britain should use the EU. I was
:10:27. > :10:33.sure a couple of years ago. And, for several years before that, I
:10:33. > :10:38.wasn't very dissatisfied with the Conservative Party, of which I was
:10:38. > :10:45.four years ago supportive of that. You say you were convinced a couple
:10:45. > :10:48.of years ago. In 2010 you wrote a paper, a crisis of trust. Idea.In
:10:48. > :10:53.that you said you do not necessarily want to leave the EU. -
:10:53. > :10:58.- I did. The our problems and issues if we do. That was three
:10:58. > :11:02.years ago. For quite a long period, I thought there was very little
:11:02. > :11:07.chance of renegotiating anything sensible with the European Union.
:11:07. > :11:10.But perhaps we should give it a go. It then became clearer and clearer
:11:11. > :11:15.that there was no point in negotiating. They made up their
:11:15. > :11:20.mind that they would not debate that and would not change anything
:11:20. > :11:25.significant. So, about... Shortly after the 2010 election, I came to
:11:25. > :11:29.the conclusion, no. But how do you know that they can't be a
:11:29. > :11:33.renegotiation which gives Britain what it means, as you see it, in
:11:33. > :11:38.terms of greater independence from the oppressive yoke of Brussels?
:11:38. > :11:42.David Cameron's position is pretty much what it appears yours was as
:11:42. > :11:47.recent as 2010. He says we must renegotiate. I will do that and
:11:47. > :11:55.once I have done that renegotiation I promise you I will put it before
:11:55. > :12:00.the British people in an in- out a referendum, which will be held by
:12:00. > :12:04.2017. But my position is very different. He is very anxious to
:12:04. > :12:09.stay in the EU. Only if he can negotiate the terms which he things
:12:09. > :12:13.are right for Britain. But he made it quite clear by dodging the
:12:13. > :12:16.question by Bill interview was immediately after his speech. Would
:12:16. > :12:26.you campaign to come out if you don't get what you want? He refused
:12:26. > :12:28.
:12:28. > :12:33.to answer that. He said even if he got the ability to catch... He said
:12:33. > :12:37.we should stay in it. You made a fortune. About �90 million in the
:12:37. > :12:41.financial markets. He developed a motion of spread betting that
:12:42. > :12:45.became very popular. You were regarded very highly in the city
:12:46. > :12:50.because you were a huge success. Many of the people who currently
:12:50. > :12:55.are making a great success of being in business and around the city,
:12:55. > :13:02.people like Martin Sorrell, Richard Branson, these are the sorts of
:13:02. > :13:07.people who are saying long and loud, we can't, as a country, afford to
:13:07. > :13:11.consider leaving the European Union. There are a lot of people like that
:13:11. > :13:15.to take that view. There are a very large number who do not take that
:13:15. > :13:19.view. In particular, the big businessmen, like the ones you have
:13:19. > :13:24.discussed, can afford that. They can afford the appalling regulation
:13:24. > :13:29.that has been imposed on us by the EU. Small businesses, people who
:13:29. > :13:39.are absolutely essential for us to grow, can't stand this regulation.
:13:39. > :13:53.
:13:53. > :13:58.And they are much more, and rightly, Do you seriously think that type of
:13:58. > :14:05.manufacturer, thinking of something like the car industry, with they
:14:05. > :14:12.want to do that? We would lose investment from overseas. There is
:14:12. > :14:17.no evidence to back that would be the case. I think that they would
:14:17. > :14:24.realise that we would flourish outside of the EU. I believe they
:14:24. > :14:31.would be anxious to invest with us. What about Barack Obama seeing as
:14:31. > :14:36.recently as last week to David Cameron that UK membership of the
:14:36. > :14:41.EU is an expression of the UK's influence UN role in the world?
:14:41. > :14:47.That was a help to us. It was not quite as far double as what Kenneth
:14:47. > :14:54.Clarke said the other day. -- quite as voluble. People are expressing
:14:54. > :14:59.views about what we should be doing. At one to be clear that I am
:14:59. > :15:04.understanding you correctly. -- I want to be. You are telling me that
:15:04. > :15:09.the president of the genetic States, when he declares his view what is
:15:09. > :15:14.to write and best thing for Britain to do, you think that can be
:15:14. > :15:18.dismissed by the British public and British politicians. The President
:15:18. > :15:22.of the United States does not know anything like as much about the
:15:22. > :15:28.position of being tied to Europe as we do. It is one of his many
:15:28. > :15:32.concerns. He must think about how it affects his foot was. It is not
:15:32. > :15:37.relevant to a consideration by a British water about whether we
:15:37. > :15:44.should be in the EU are not. -- British voter. If a British voter
:15:44. > :15:48.has any sense, he would come to the conclusion we should be out.
:15:48. > :15:55.fact that the United States sees Britain as an important player
:15:55. > :16:02.inside the EU, inside NATO, and that Britain's international
:16:02. > :16:07.standing to a real extent is linked to our membership... The country is
:16:07. > :16:11.damaged by it. If we were not in the EU, we would have a seat at the
:16:11. > :16:16.World Trade Organisation. We do not because they negotiate on our
:16:16. > :16:21.behalf. Their interests in many cases are different from ours.
:16:21. > :16:25.Again, I am intrigued to follow this argument through. The fact
:16:25. > :16:29.that the EU is negotiating a free- trade deal with the United States
:16:29. > :16:33.but independent economists have said could be up to �10 billion to
:16:33. > :16:39.the UK economy, that to you should be no argument for staying inside
:16:39. > :16:44.the European Union? No, because we can negotiate our own free-trade
:16:44. > :16:49.agreement with the US. The US will be bothered about negotiating with
:16:49. > :16:55.the UK? Of course they are. They have it with lots of people. A how
:16:55. > :17:00.important to you think we are? How big a deal is Britain? Of course we
:17:00. > :17:04.are important enough. We have a lot of trade with the United States.
:17:04. > :17:11.They are one or far big allies and when a fire big trading partners.
:17:11. > :17:13.If all the nations and the world at the trading -- all the nations in
:17:13. > :17:17.the world of free-trading agreements with each other. It is
:17:17. > :17:22.only the EU that has is ludicrous customs agreement. Look at the
:17:22. > :17:27.policy offering of UKIP at the moment. Many people worry that very
:17:27. > :17:31.little has be fleshed out. You sort of admitted that you sell. I did
:17:31. > :17:37.not say that. We had a full manifesto for the recent local
:17:37. > :17:42.elections. We had a wonderful result. Naturally, everything has
:17:42. > :17:45.to be thought out again. It will be between now and the European
:17:45. > :17:49.elections and certainly the Westminster elections. Is it
:17:49. > :17:53.possible people voted for you not so much because they love your
:17:53. > :18:00.manifesto but more out of anger and frustration? The air is an element
:18:00. > :18:04.of that. -- there is. Lord Ashcroft published his polls. Getting out of
:18:04. > :18:09.the EU is the most important thing but there were three more important
:18:09. > :18:12.things. One is immigration, another is law and order and the other is
:18:12. > :18:17.the economy. People thought we were best at all of those. More
:18:17. > :18:21.important than that, not policy, but they understand that people
:18:22. > :18:26.like me tell the truth and to not going for political correctness.
:18:26. > :18:30.Tell the truth. Is it the truth when Nigel Farage takes out a
:18:30. > :18:37.newspaper advertisement just the other day in regard to immigration
:18:37. > :18:43.and says the current government is "opening the door to 29 million
:18:43. > :18:48.Bulgarians and Romanians from the 1st January, 2014." is that
:18:48. > :18:52.strictly true? Yes. He is opening the door. You know as well as I do
:18:52. > :18:57.that words matter. When he says opening the door to 29 million
:18:57. > :19:02.people, the implication is that there is a possibility 20 rent
:19:02. > :19:07.people will come. You know as well as I do that very few will come. --
:19:07. > :19:12.29 million people will come. are trying to twist his words. He
:19:12. > :19:16.was exactly right in saying that. He said 20 a million people will be
:19:16. > :19:22.entitled to come. That does not imply to anyone... -- 29 million
:19:22. > :19:27.people. He did not say are entitled. He said opening the door to 20 in
:19:27. > :19:32.million people. No one could possibly have read that as a
:19:32. > :19:36.suggestion that 29 million people would come. The idea that Nigel
:19:36. > :19:42.Farage has peddled of a freeze on all immigration for at least five
:19:42. > :19:47.years, that is still policy, is it? That is not exactly right. People
:19:47. > :19:52.who want to come here to work will be entitled to come if we need
:19:52. > :19:56.their skills and not otherwise. People for one to come here to live,
:19:56. > :20:01.with very few exceptions, will not be allowed to come. This country is
:20:01. > :20:07.tremendously fool already. We have the same population as France for
:20:07. > :20:11.example and half the area. I just wonder whether business will find
:20:11. > :20:16.that an attractive policy, given the way that business clearly in
:20:16. > :20:21.many areas do lies on overseas workers. There is a trade-off. --
:20:21. > :20:26.relies. If you can get people from Europe to do work that people from
:20:26. > :20:30.here could possibly be doing, that may benefit business by lowering
:20:30. > :20:36.the wages but it does not benefit the workers are far country. We
:20:36. > :20:41.have a duty towards them. When it comes to the economy, you have a
:20:41. > :20:46.flat tax as a proposal. Massive cuts in public expenditure but, at
:20:46. > :20:52.the same time, a huge increase in defence expenditure. You say that
:20:52. > :20:55.can be married to slashing the country's debt. I am just
:20:55. > :21:02.struggling in pure mathematical terms to see how any of that makes
:21:02. > :21:07.sense. I think it does. First of all we would eliminate a larch -- a
:21:07. > :21:15.large amount of spending. That is what this Government says they are
:21:15. > :21:18.doing. We have not had an opportunity to show. We cannot say
:21:18. > :21:26.what the Government has said. That is no one so. We would reduce
:21:26. > :21:31.foreign aid. That is a pinprick in terms of the national budget.
:21:31. > :21:41.you are talking about a whole of 100 million, that is 40 million. It
:21:41. > :21:41.
:21:41. > :21:46.is not a pinprick. If one looks at the sums, -- 40 million, --. You
:21:46. > :21:51.would be giving a huge pay-off to the richest in the society with a
:21:51. > :21:55.flat tax alone. Cutting the top rate of tax. The universal rate of
:21:55. > :22:03.tax was 31 %. It would give the richest in this country the biggest
:22:03. > :22:08.pay-day of their lives. It was a top rate of tax of 40 % not so long
:22:08. > :22:13.ago. That was until the Labour government, in fact. The rich paid
:22:13. > :22:17.far more tax then than they had paid in the past. The idea that
:22:17. > :22:21.cutting tax for the rich reduces the amount that they pay has been
:22:21. > :22:25.shown over and over and over again to be quite wrong. It actually
:22:25. > :22:30.increases the amount that they pay because they do not bother to go
:22:30. > :22:34.and live abroad or to use complicated tax avoidance and so on.
:22:34. > :22:39.Final thought, you are facing a real choice when it comes to
:22:39. > :22:43.British politics. You can either choose to reach out to the
:22:43. > :22:49.Conservatives and try to work with them, rather than destroy them. Or,
:22:49. > :22:53.it seems you can do real damage to them and maybe in the election your
:22:53. > :23:00.presence will enable the Labour Party to become the biggest party,
:23:00. > :23:04.may be the majority party. What is it you want? We want to get out of
:23:04. > :23:08.the European Union. If it had not been for us, the Prime Minister but
:23:08. > :23:12.never in a month of Sundays have guaranteed that if he gets elected,
:23:12. > :23:16.and it is a big if, that there will be a referendum. It is about
:23:16. > :23:21.pressurising the Conservatives. We make it more likely that we will
:23:21. > :23:25.achieve what is absolutely the best thing for this country which is our
:23:25. > :23:28.exit from the European Union. you want to do a deal with the
:23:28. > :23:33.Conservatives before the next election? Nigel Farage said he
:23:33. > :23:41.would be prepared to considerate but only if David Cameron was no
:23:41. > :23:45.longer deliver. What he might consider is to do deals inside
:23:45. > :23:49.constituency -- constituencies, from one candidate to the other. A
:23:49. > :23:55.dealer think he would do a party to party deal at the moment. I think
:23:55. > :23:59.not. Do you think, in the end, as a former supporter of the
:23:59. > :24:04.Conservative Party, the biggest donor ever in the party's history,
:24:04. > :24:08.do you think that there is a strong possibility that your rise will be
:24:08. > :24:14.part of a story that sees the break-up of the Conservative Party
:24:14. > :24:20.as we currently know it? I think it is possible. It does not bother me.