Enlarge imageBy Paul Majendie
LONDON (Reuters) - Celebrity Eurosceptic Robert Kilroy-Silk has launched his own political party after quitting the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) that he helped hoist to European prominence.
The smooth-talking former chat show host boosted UKIP’s profile last year when Britain’s most volubly anti-European party won 12 seats in the European parliament.
UKIP stole many votes in the Euro-poll from the eurosceptic Conservatives, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s main rival in a general election widely expected in May.
Their disarray and the very public mud-slinging between Kilroy-Silk and UKIP have been a welcome boost to Conservative leader Michael Howard, still trailing behind Blair in opinion polls.
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Kilroy-Silk, who stepped down as host of a BBC morning chat show after sparking outrage for calling Arabs "limb amputators and suicide bombers," is calling his party Veritas -- the Latin for Truth.
A spokesman for UKIP, which he left last month amid much acrimony, said: "You mean Vanitas. It is a one-trick pony."
"The more Robert throws his toys out of the pram, the more the public can see the man behind the tan. It is childish histrionics and a Me, Me, Me approach to everything, including his own country," UKIP spokesman Mark Croucher told Reuters.
UKIP, which advocates withdrawal from the European Union, denied that the departure of its most high-profile face would damage its election chances.
Veritas deputy leader Damian Hockney, who himself defected from UKIP on Sunday, stoutly defended the latest arrival on the British political scene, telling Reuters: "On the European Union the politicians have been less than frank when talking about what was being constructed.
"It’s also an attempt to try and avoid the spin one sees so much in politics today."
Political analysts argued that UKIP’s impressive performance in the European elections was a one-off blip.
But it has pledged to end "mass immigration," a vow that could strike a chord with voters.
A recent poll estimated that one in five voters could opt at the next election for UKIP or the British National Party, another right-wing fringe party.
The silver-haired Kilroy-Silk, who denies allegations that he is racist or a xenophobe, was a fixture of the BBC’s morning TV schedule during the 17-year run of his show.
But that came abruptly to a halt in January last year after the Sunday Express newspaper published an article by him headlined "We owe the Arabs nothing."
In the article, he asked: "What do (Arabs) think we feel about them? That we admire them for being suicide bombers, limb amputators, women repressors?"
