Richard Corbett - Richard Corbett Versus The UK Independence Party

Richard Corbett Versus The UK Independence Party

Richard Corbett has been critical of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP).

In this context, he courted controversy in June 2004 with claims in The Independent newspaper of UKIP links with the far-right British National Party in the local elections: "In Yorkshire, where both the BNP and UKIP put up candidates, they appear to have come to an arrangement not to stand against one another".

Richard Corbett's pamphlet "25 Things You Didn't Know When You Voted For UKIP", published by Britain in Europe in 2004, was the subject of further controversy in October 2004, when UKIP demanded that the pamphlet be pulped, claiming that one item in the pamphlet "breaks a court order banning publication of details of a legal action involving one of the party's MEPs", namely the fraud case against Ashley Mote MEP. In practice, this gave further publicity to the pamphlet, which was not pulped, as it did not break any court order.

Following Ashley Mote’s imprisonment in September 2007 for fraud, Corbett called on the government to change the law which allowed the former UKIP MEP to be paid in full during his spell in jail. The Minister responsible for payment of MEPs (and MPs), Harriet Harman promised to look into the matter.