Concern is immigrant numbers, not origin, says Ukip hopeful

One of Steven Woolfe’s grandmothers, Christine Kelly, came from outside Naas in Co Kildare; the other was Jewish. One of his grandfathers was an American GI who met a Manchester girl during the second World War.

Today, Woolfe – who was born in Moss Side, a district that became internationally known for some of the worst rioting in the United Kingdom in the early 1980s – is an MEP for the UK Independence Party (Ukip).

More importantly, he is his party’s candidate in Stockport in Greater Manchester, where Ukip took just 2.2 per cent of the vote – a paltry 862 ballots – in the House of Commons election five years ago. “It is a hard campaign, I won’t deny it ... Labour has been entrenched for decades, but people are listening and taking leaflets. This is about building for the future,” he says in his Chester home.

Woolfe was at home because he had been temporarily sidelined from the campaign by an attack of hereditary gout: “It’ll be alright shortly. A nuisance,” he says, as he makes tea.

His chances of taking a seat in the constituency are slim: William Hill puts it as a 100/1-on chance for Labour. The Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and Ukip are all at 33/1.

However, Stockport could see one of the more significant outcomes from May’s elections, if there are major gains for Ukip in local elections that are taking place in some areas alongside the general election.

“We have excellent chances in two wards. Labour don’t want us to win councillors because we will be a threat in 2020. Labour has drafted people in, we had no chance a year ago. They had left it alone.

“If anything, we are taking resources away that they could have used elsewhere,” says Woolfe, who comes from a Labour-supporting background and once went to Labour meetings in a pub on the edges of the constituency that he now wants to represent.

Just a few years ago, few would have given Ukip a second glance in north of England constituencies, but the result in last year’s Heywood and Middleton byelection, on the edges of Rochdale, has changed much. Then, Labour expected a Ukip challenge, but they believed they would, nevertheless, hold on easily. It did win but by just 600 votes in a night that saw Labour nerves edge towards panic at times.

Multicultural

Woolfe, given his multicultural background, perhaps, has become a frequent public face of Ukip in recent months, as it seeks to challenge allegations that the party is inherently racist and xenophobic.

On occasions, the experience has not been the easiest, since Woolfe and the party's leader, Nigel Farage, have been accused of saying different things over whether Ukip wants annual immigration limits, or not.

Woolfe rejects the charge of racism: “Immigration is about supply and demand. It isn’t about racism. We don’t care where you are from, it is about the sheer numbers,” he says.

Growing up, he did face verbal abuse: “My mother had to explain “ni**er” to me. I had been called it all day. I was five. She said it was a different name for people with curly hair and a slight tan and not to worry about it.”

Later, there was physical abuse: “You learned quickly to defend yourself by being fast. My five-, six-yard sprint was good, or you tried just to be diplomatic and ignore it.” However, he insists that Manchester “has changed phenomenally”.

“It has become much more accepting. Integration happened because people fell in love. I don’t believe our country is a racist country any more.”

However, this is so, he argues, because immigration occurred at “manageable” levels. “Yes, there was always some impact on wages, but it was never dramatic. It it now accepted that large-scale immigration permanently lowers wages.”

Rejecting the public perception of Ukip as being a party of disgruntled half-colonels and the annoyed suburban middle classes, Woolfe insists its message is now being heard in working-class communities.

His Irish grandmother had come to Manchester when “she was 14 and a half or 15 to work for the nuns as a domestic” before she met the man who would become her husband, and with whom she had four children.

Following the break-up of his parents’ marriage, Woolfe went to live with his grandparents in Burnage, “sharing a box-room with my mother and my brother for three years” until they got a council house.

Devastating impact

A photograph of him with his grandmother, who died when she was just 60, is prominent on his desk: “Her death was a huge shock, it had a devastating impact. She died at Easter time,” he says, tears welling.

His mother had three jobs to pay the bills: one in a biscuit factory, another cleaning at nights, and another at weekends selling shoes in Stockport Market along with her sons.

“We had a huge ethos of work drilled into us: work hard and save and you can help get out of the environment that you are in. It was all based on hard work and being respectful to others,” he says.

The 1980s left its scars on the north of England. “I remember Thatcher closing down the mines, I remember the disgust that people felt, where people lost their communities.” His stepfather, the Northern Irish-born Bill Cogan, was a printer, until he became unemployed.

“He didn’t work again. He used to do long shifts. Not for a lot of money, but enough.”

Some of those who lost out in the upheavals of the 1980s committed suicide, some fell to drink.

“We recognised that there was too much union power, and a need for reform, but we couldn’t understand why these politicians didn’t care.”

TV debate

Following last Thursday’s leaders’ TV debate, much of the commentary focused on Ukip leader Nigel Farage’s decision to talk so graphically about the cost of HIV and immigrants on the National Health Service.

“Nigel wanted to do it in a way that the media would react and push it into the headlines and that people would come to us having heard the arguments. I think the reaction is exactly what he expected.

“I think Nigel is a very dramatic person. No one listened to Ukip in the early days, so there were lots of times where he did things to get people’s attention. This is the same, but people are paying attention to what he said.”