Paul Mason: UKIP voters are "toe rags"
The former BBC Newsnight correspondent and Channel 4 economics editor made the comments while speaking alongside the Green Party’s Sian Berry in Hackney.
Speaking about the Stoke-on-Trent Central by-election at the Novara Media event, the Labour-supporting journalist made the scathing assessment of the supporters of the party led by Paul Nuttall.
He said: “They’re not working class Tories, I grew up alongside working class Tories… we have to respect what working class Tories are, even though we don’t agree with them.
“They’re a different take on the mixture of nation and class.
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They are toe-rags, basically. They are the bloke who nicks your bike
“Most of the Ukip people are either people who haven’t voted or have flipped in a radical way from Labour. They are toe-rags, basically. They are the bloke who nicks your bike.”
In the clip, Mason makes clear that he is not joking after the crowd nervously laughs at his dig.
“No, seriously, that’s who it is, it’s the bloke who does all the anti-social things who are made into heroes by Thatcherism and they kind of got sidelined,” he added.
“A lot of them are not poor, certainly all the Trumpoids.
“They’re obsessed with the micro hierarchy of their disappointment.”
He also tells them that he will be going to Stoke to campaign for the Labour Party.
The video comes as Labour’s candidate Gareth Snell told the Mirror Mr Nuttall, Ukip’s candidate in the by-election, should “sod off back to where he came from”.
He said: “All of a sudden, because there was a big Leave vote and a timely parliamentary by-election, he wants to brand himself Mr Stoke.
“Paul has come here to make his name, I came here to make my life.”
However, Mr Nuttall is tipped to snatch the Brexit-backing constituency from Labour and earn Ukip’s second seat in the House of Commons.