Ukip's Raheem Kassam shows just how far we all have come

'Continuity Nigel' launched his bid for the Ukip leadership from - where else - behind the bar of a shut pub at half past ten in the morning

Raheem Kassam launches his Ukip leadership bid at the Westminster Arms

“When I was growing up in Uxbridge, all I wanted to do was run a sandwich shop,” says a man called Raheem Kassam, who is, unfortunately, not running a sandwich shop in Uxbridge. “The fact that I am standing here today, shows you how far we have come.”

Where he is standing, here today, is on a crate behind the bar in a shut pub at half past ten in the morning. Kassam, once Nigel Farage's chief advisor, is the "Faragist candidate" for the Ukip leadership, and as if proof were required, he has hired a pub to prove it. "Our legacy is Nigel. Nigel is our legacy," he says. Kassam is 30 and looks 40, which makes him 20 and 25 years younger than Nigel respectively.

That 20 TV cameras and 15 plastic Union Jack-waving activists have gathered at the Westminster Arms, long before opening hours, has served as unfortunate siren call to eight Royal Marines in their green berets, momentarily distracted from their "Justice for Marine A" protest happening simultaneously in Parliament Square, who have falsely imagined there might be an out-of-hours pint to be had. There isn’t. Three lagers have been poured, but they are what is known in political circles as meta-lagers. Had the cameras not been there to film them, they would never have been poured.

The Marines are in town, by the way, to protest the ongoing legal action against of one of their number, who admitted to the "mercy killing" of two mortally wounded Taliban fighters, and found himself in court.

Ukip, despite the factionalism, the fist fights and the possibly imminent bankruptcy, show no sign of wanting to be put out of their misery. Carrying mortal wounds, Ukip is determined to fight on, even with the battle already won.

The activists are reliable enough, cheering on cue every time anyone says the word Brexit or Nigel, which they do, a lot. One lad, in his early 20s, wearing his green "Grassroots Out" tie from the referendum campaign that finished four months ago, is so desperate to fit in he is gamely sipping alcohol-free beer, at half past ten in the morning. Another, waving her little Union Jack for the cameras, claims it’s "Just like being at a wedding, isn’t it?" She must have been to some very low-budget weddings.

Raheem, apparently, is here to stand up for "pride, patriotism, aspiration," which have apparently "been beaten down by the liberal left."

But he’s also here to drink a pint for the TV cameras, and he gainfully grimaces through a full three sips before Michael Crick of Channel 4 News corners him and reads back a few of his choice tweets, including a now deleted one about telling Nicola Sturgeon to "tape her mouth shut and close her legs so she can’t reproduce."

Kassam’s nervous reach for the lager at this point seems almost involuntary, a stalling for time, but it definitely pays off. A few seconds later and he’s realised he’s got a watertight defence: “That was before I knew she’d had a miscarriage.”

Kassam is not the favourite in the Ukip leadership race, but victory is not beyond him. Ukip is the third largest party in the country. It won almost four million votes at the last general election. That makes Kassam a significant figure in British politics. That, more than anything, shows how far we have come.