The UK Independence Party is misunderstood and misrepresented, their candidate for Mayor of London tells me when we meet.Gerard Batten is a somewhat unusual politician, in that he is a member of a parliament that he desires to have no power over the lives of his constituents.
As an MEP for London since 2004, he spends his days in Brussels trying to think up new ways to discredit and dismantle the European Union (or "ferment rebellion" as he describes it).
For a long time UKIP was seen as something of a joke by the political establishment, flirting with Robert Kilroy-Silk and appealing to the sort of voter who thinks the Tory party is full of bleeding-heart liberals.
They weren't laughing so hard in 2004, when the party took more than 16% of the vote in the elections for the European Parliament.
The party now has 10 MEPs, 30 local councillors and two members of the House of Lords who defected from the Conservatives.
Perhaps that is why David Cameron felt moved to refer to them as "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists."
UKIP was founded in 1993, a year after Tory Prime Minister John Major signed the UK up to the Maastricht treaty.
Its aims and beliefs are simple: full withdrawl from the EU and the return of sovereignty to Westminster, the maintenance of the union between Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland and an end to the present immigration arrangements.
Batten descibes the party as "libertarian" and denies they are racists. No one can deny that their message resonated with some Londoners – in the 2004 Mayoral elections UKIP candidate Frank Maloney came fourth, winning 6% (115,665) of first preference votes and 10% (193,157) of second preference votes.
Batten, a founder member of the party, is their candidate for Mayor of London in the May 1st election.
While unlikely to either unseat Labour's Ken Livingstone or defeat Tory candidate Boris Johnson or the Lib Dem's Brian Paddick, the party could win a seat or two on the London Assembly.
Though it should be noted that UKIP, who have nearly 17,000 members, advocate abolishing the Assembly.
Batten, who will be 54 next month, worked as a salesman for BT for 28 years before being elected as an MEP.
In person, he is fluid and likable, if somewhat exercised about the direction of the UK, and at times is reminiscent of Ricky Gervais in his tone and delivery.
His references to the views of cab drivers can seem more like Jim Davidson, but there is no doubting he is sincere in his beliefs.
A report in the Evening Standard last month claimed that Batten would end funding for Pride London and his comment that incumbent Mayor Ken Livingstone's distribution of funds to gay and ethnic minority events is "cultural Marxism" piqued my interest.
Batten contacted us to say he had been misrepresented, and we decided to speak to him about his policies on immigration, race and the politics of Europe.
PinkNews.co.uk: Let's start with the charges that UKIP is racist and has an agenda similar to that of the BNP.
Gerard Batten: We have people from different races and nationalities running for UKIP and among my friends who advise me on the Islamic issue, one of them is actually an ex-Sharia lawyer who converted to Christianity.
We don't have a problem with foreigners or people of other races. You can have a multi-ethnic society and it can work so long as people feel like they belong to the same society. What doesn't work is multiculturalism.
It creates division and especially when you've got now the idea of introducing Sharia law to the country. The whole thing is crazy. You can have a country where people have their own culture and their own customs but they've got to sign up to one legal system, one political system.
We want controlled immigration. The BNP have another agenda, which is ethnic cleansing, and if you talk to any of their activists that's what they want. I know that because that's what they've told me.
They were regretful about it but they had to explain to me that my wife and family would have to be deported at some point in the future if they ever came to power. My wife comes from the Philippines.
I don't understand their obsession with us, because they do seem to be totally obsessed with us. The kind of people that join UKIP wouldn't join the BNP. We get the occasional person who would go off and defect but they are possibly in the wrong Party to start with.
Read the rest of the interview here.
