UKIP — taking a stand

There's a great story in the Dartford Times today, the Dartford Times being the local newspaper if you happen to live in or around Dartford:

Tolls at the Dartford River Crossing could be SCRAPPED if a bid to prove they are illegal is successful.

Who might be trying to prove that they are illegal and by what mechanism?

Members of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) want to prove that charging heavy goods vehicles more during peak times is ILLEGAL under European Union law.

Who would have thought it? Certainly, one Mr Mike Nattrass doesn't think it beyond the realms of possibility:

UKIP deputy leader and transport spokesman, Mike Nattrass intends to take the matter to UK ministers this week. A party spokesman said: "If they find the charging illegal it would force the UK government to scrap the entire statute controlling charging at the site."

We thus have the interesting situation in which UKIP — the neo-liberal, non-racist party seeking Britain's withdrawal from the European Union (according to its website) — is employing European Law to question British law!

The article goes on to say:

Mike Nattrass, MEP, said he is prepared to go to the European Court of Justice to get tolls scrapped at one of the busiest river crossings in the country…

Department for Transport officials argue the [tolls are] legal because it is effectively a congestion charge, exempting it from the EU Directive 99/62 governing tolls. Mr Nattrass said: "It's a ludicrous position because it's an excuse that could be applied anywhere in the country in order to flout European law.

"Kent's motorists are constantly treated as a cash cow by a government which is prepared to break the [European] law if it means it can extract a few extra pounds in stealth taxes. We will take this all the way to the European Court of Justice, or as far as necessary to get the charges scrapped."

Mr Nattrass is not the only person to get in on the act:

UKIP spokesman Mark Croucher said: "If they [the European Union] find the charging illegal it would force the UK government to scrap the entire statute controlling charging at the site. Once traffic flow is improved as a result it will be politically very difficult for the government to re-impose a new statute to comply with European law."

You couldn't make it up.

I don't mean to nit-pick but what about the idea of 'being in the EU but not run by it'?. According to UKIP's FAQs:

It may sound fine, but it's just not on. The EU is about nothing less than binding the individual nation states into one giant federation. If Continental politicians can be 'up front' about it, why can't ours? Even if we could resist further federalism, we'd still be stuck with the 30000 regulations already in force (my emphasis).

It all seems a bit contradictory to me, especially when you keep in mind that:

[a] UKIP government would hack away all legislation on companies and other corporate bodies, which has its origin in Directives from the European Union.

Quite how that fits in with the Dartford Times article quoted above, I have no idea. I have therefore written to Mr Nattrass to see if he could explain it to me. I'll post any reply I receive here on arbitrary constant.