Is UKIP a racist party? These 15 comments would suggest so

Left Foot Forward

Nigel Farage insists that UKIP is not a racist party. So why does it attract so many racists?

 

After one of his councillors was filmed saying she had a ‘problem with people with negroid features’, UKIP leader Nigel Farage stated today that:

 “I haven’t seen the film but she is alleged, and she confirmed to us, that she had made a series of racist comments that is at odds with what we stand for.”

Rozanne Duncan may have been expelled from the UKIP, but scandals like this are no longer an exception to the party rule. Here are 15 other times that ‘racist comments’ have come from the heart of UKIP:

1. Last May UKIP member Ken Chapman, hoping to be elected to Amber Valley Borough Council in Derbyshire, wrote the following post:

 “islam is a cancer that needs eradicating multiculturism does not work in this country clear them all off to the desert with their camals that’s their way of life.”

2. UKIP was forced to sack newly elected councillor Dave Small after just six days, when Facebook posts from 2012 surfaced, including this:

 “I visiting the city of Birmingham recently and felt like a foreigner in the city of my birth, all around me I could hear the sound of jabbering in an alien voice … we also have the Pakistani’ and the Somali’s. Tell me Mr Cameron Why? the men wear their Pyjamas.”

3. In 2013 UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom famously said that the UK should stop providing aid to ‘bongo bongo Land’, and that the aid was being used to buy designer sunglasses and Parisian apartments. He may have toned down the language, but this Tweet from 15 February shows that Bloom hasn’t changed:

4. Last year UKIP was forced to distance itself from local council candidate James Elgar after the discovery of tweets like this:

#ThingsAsianBoysDo groom and rape underage white girls, stab and rob innocent old white people, bomb innocent white people #EctEctEct [sic]” 

Elgar’s father insisted that his son ‘came home at 10.30 pm with a curry’ the day the story broke.

5. Last April UKIP suspended Andre Lampitt, the star of its European Election TV campaign, after he tweeted:

“Most Nigerians are generally bad people… I  grew up in Africa and dare anyone to prove me wrong.”

6. After comedian Lenny Henry said there should be more black and ethnic minority people in creative industries, candidate William Henwood said that Henry should move to a ‘black country’.

7. Joseph Quirk, former UKIP candidate for Boldon Colliery Ward on South Tyneside Council has shared anti-Semitic material claiming that Jewish Bankers financed Hitler, Soviet Communism and 9/11. There’s also this from November:

“Well, I reckon dogs are more intelligent, better company and certainly better behaved than most Muslims.”

8. Gerard Batten, UKIP’s chief whip and immigration spokesman, believes that all UK Muslims should sign up to a special code of conduct, and wants mosque building to be banned.

9. Camden UKIP chairman Magnus Nielsen made headlines after describing Islam as ‘organised crime’. Now standing for Hampstead and Kilburn, Nielsen says that his ‘great aim’ is to licence mosques. Asked if he would prescribe the same for Jewish and Christian places of worship, he said that this would not be necessary.

10. Former Offerton councillor Harry Perry’s Twitter feed is astonishing. As well as prolific sharing of material about the ‘sin of feminism’ and the ‘disease’ of homosexuality, Perry is obsessed with the idea of ‘white genocide’:

and has a rabid hatred of Islam:

11. Plymouth UKIP candidate Ron Northcott believes that premier league football teams should be limited to two foreign players. His Twitter account is a treasure trove of bizzare anti-Scottish (‘jock’) bile and calls to reclaim the country.

12. After the death of Nelson Mandela, West London UKIP member David William Griffiths wrote in the members-only forum that some people were ‘intended by nature’ to be slaves. Meanwhile Pamela Preedy, secretary of UKIP’s Redcar branch, questioned why Mandela’s death had received so much coverage since he ‘had nothing to do with Britain’.

13. Newport East candidate Donald Grewar was forced to resign last month after he apparently backed a post by the EDL, calling for ‘no surrender to militant Islam or political correctness’.

14. Diane James is UKIP MEP for the South East of England and has said that Romanians are naturally associated with crime:

“On 1 January 2014 the floodgates will open for Bulgarian and Romanian citizens [to come to Britain].

“We are not just talking about pressure on services from immigration but also, and I have to say it, the crime associated with Romanians.”

15. In 2013, the then Stourport-on-Severn councillor Eric Kitson was questioned by police after he shared anti-Muslim cartoons on Facebook. In one particularly memorable post he said of Muslim women: ‘Hang um all first then ask questions later.’

Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter

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293 Responses to “Is UKIP a racist party? These 15 comments would suggest so”

  1. Anthony

    There is quite a lot wrong with this article but before getting into it let me say that I have little sympathy for UKIP, their members of their policies. And I believe they are, in many ways, racist. BUT…

    This article asks one question and attempts to prove another. That a party attracts racists does not prove that the party is racist. It might prove it if the party did nothing about racist member but as the case at the top of the article shows, UKIP does expel its racist members. I would compare this to the problem the LibDems appear to have in dealing with high-profile antisemitic members.

    Secondly, the evidence from the article is out of context. How many similar cases could we find for other parties? Quite a few actually just that they don’t get as widely reported.

    Thirdly, where were these people before? Either these councillors were all politically inactive until UKIP came along or they were previously members of some other party. The latter seems more likely in which case the same charge of racism ought to apply to those other parties.

    Fourth, the sample size is pretty small. Yes we hear a lot about racism and UKIP because there is clearly an agenda there. But the party has 40,000+ members so 15 or even 50 of those is tiny.

    Finally, and crucially, if you want to ask whether the party is racist then examine it’s proposals. And here you can find gold very quickly. UKIP want to ban religious slaughter in Britain. They claim it is because of animal rights but their spokesman told the Jewish Chronicle:

    “This isn’t aimed at you [Jews] – it’s aimed elsewhere – it’s aimed at others. You’ve been caught in the crossfire; collateral damage. You know what I mean.”

    So there you have it. UKIP is a racist party determined to make life difficult for Muslims just because they’re Muslims. It’s surprising that this clear-cut statement from UKIP has not been made more of. But I guess that since the policy in question is actually supported by so many of UKIP’s opponents it makes it very tricky to condemn them for it.

    But go on LFF – there’s your proof that UKIP is racist. So use it and make a big deal about it.

  2. Selohesra

    UKIP is no more racist than Labour or Tories – they will certainly have some racist members as will the other parties but that is entirely different. Much of media dislike UKIP – from Guardian/BBC on left to Telegraph/Mail on right and so big up every UKIP instance whilst turning blind eye to activities of minor players in other parties.

  3. SueBecks

    Sign the petition Duncan must resign https://www.change.org/p/thanet-district-council-call-for-the-resignation-of-councillor-rozanne-duncan-3?utm_campaign=fb_dialog&utm_medium=email&utm_source=signature_receipt&post_id=100006892842322_1569733486599731#_=_

  4. John O'Connell

    Anthony: RE ” It might prove it if the party did nothing about racist member but as
    the case at the top of the article shows, UKIP does expel its racist
    members. ”

    There are far too many in UKIP who have expressed racist views and who have not only NOT been expelled, but have been promoted.

    Vicky Ayling was a mere Councillor when she made her “Send Them All Back Home” rant – now she an approved candidate.

    Until people such as her are removed from UKIP it will continue to be seen as a predominanyly racist organisation.

  5. Lee Collier

    Actually it proves that UKIP expels its /publicly/ racist members. And most of these people aren’t merely UKIP members, they’re UKIP representatives in one capacity or another. Which other parties have had so many representatives in such a short period express openly racist views? I would think BNP are the only one.

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