The rise of Ukip has been bad for British politics There are the low-tax, libertarian Kippers who must be baffled by the party's opposition to gay marriage and some of its older, more absurd policies such as mandatory uniforms for taxi drivers, and there is the "red" Ukip faction motivated by a populist appeal to less well-off working-class voters who feel left behind by economic growth. Those voters are hardly likely to buy into the practical impact of a radical, small-state agenda. The reasoning for expansion beyond a libertarian position is obvious: there just aren't that many libertarians out there, and anti-EU sentiment is felt by a much broader group. The problem is that the party is filled with voters and activists with diametrically opposing views on the economy, a subject usually fundamental to political cohesion. If Ukip has defied political physics it has done so because of the EU. Their MEPs" involvement in the European project doesn't extend far beyond turning up to pick up the cheques - they are the angry teens who doesn't speak much to mum and dad, but still take the cash. This opposition has been enough to unify a wide group of voters, but also looks like it could cause nasty political headaches. Ukip's head of policy Tim Aker MEP confirmed on Monday what Nigel Farage said recently: that Ukip would do a deal with Labour to make Ed Miliband prime minister if it got them a referendum. This admission will confirm, for those who are cynical about Ukip's motives, that the party wants to see David Cameron lose the next election, in the hopes that it will result in a more Kipperish Conservative party. Doing so by leeching votes from the Conservatives and promoting Miliband to No 10 will surely be a betrayal of many of their core voters, who will be discarded for the greater political project. Ukip's answer to such criticism might be that Cameron and Miliband are two sides to the same coin, and that as the political outsiders they have to do a deal with someone. But the claim of being a party of outsiders is well past its sell-by date. This week Ukip will go from one MP to two, both of whom are the singing and dancing epitome of the Westminster political class. Farage has spent seven years as party leader, 15 as an MEP, and is on the tails of Screaming Lord Sutch for the number of general elections he has unsuccessfully contested. That may well change in May, at which point (if they're still there) he will join Carswell and Reckless with 15 years of experience as Westminster insiders between them. A gaggle of more Westminstery "pale, male, and stale" types would be difficult to imagine. Aker, the head of Ukip's policy unit, left Nottingham University with a politics and history degree, before knocking about in Westminster pressure groups, and then becoming an MEP. Even Ed Miliband's career path was less Westminster-based than that. So if Ukip don't have a cohesive economic policy, aren't agreed on where they are "around the back" of the traditional Left and Right parties, and are as unestablished as a club in St James's, what do they stand for? When Farage dismissed his entire 2010 manifesto as "drivel" it was surely time to stop listening to what Ukippers say on a daily basis, given how subject to fundamental change it is, and look at their political actions. In domestic politics they haven't achieved enough to be properly assessed. We do know that Ukip deselected their local candidate in Clacton to pick a solid Westminster insider. It's in Europe that Ukip has an unambiguous record. If you were looking anywhere to determine what a Westminster Ukip would do, it's the arena in which they've had the time to show their hand. Despite constantly insisting that too many of our laws emanate from the EU, and despite winning the European elections in the UK this year outright, their MEPs have done little to advance the UK's cause in the arena where they have power and influence. In May of this year, Ukip ranked bottom out of 76 parties from across the EU for the number of votes attended, averaging only 61.1 per cent. In March last year Ukip's MEPs voted against a reduced EU budget, when even the Labour Party's MEPs joined the Conservatives in voting for the budget reduction. This year six of their MPs even voted against attempts to curb the illegal trade of ivory. The elephant in the room when Ukip claims that the EU is undemocratic is that the non-involvement of their elected MEPs is even more undemocratic. Montaigne's warning that "saying is one thing and doing is another" is nowhere more true than in Ukip's financial dealings with European politicians. Ukip's European Group receives £2.1m, of which Ukip gets about £1m a year on the nod from Polish far-Right leader Janusz Korwin-Mikke, who has allowed one of his MEPs to join Ukip's group to maintain their eligibility for the cash. Any claims to being a party for liberty and British values are fatally undermined by a grubby deal conducted with a man who questions Hitler's involvement in the Holocaust. Ukip's supporters blame the EU's funding rules, but those are the rules of the game. Ukip's leadership has agreed that the price of their values, the price of going into a deal with a man that the French Front National considered too extremist, is about £1m a year. On a whole range of issues it's far from clear what Ukip stands for, save for the fact that it's a party represented in Parliament by Westminster insiders, and in Europe by lazy, undemocratic politicians who do deals with a man whose views encapsulate the "values" Britain has fought wars against. Ukip wins votes from the Right and the Left. It is against corporate excess and in favour of lower taxes. It is both for and against a tax on "luxury." It claims the mantle of Thatcherism while floating a deal with Ed Miliband. It appears to stand for everything, but often policies evaporate to nothing. It is a dramatic, contradictory performance worthy of the Turner prize, but not one worthy of a vote. Rupert is speaking in opposition to the motion "This House Believes that Ukip has been good for British politics" tomorrow at 7.30pm at the Cambridge Union