The new BNP? UKIP stands by racist PPC

Left Foot Forward

UKIP is standing by racist parliamentary candidate for Ilford South Paul Wiffen, who spoke about "Muslim nutters" and "Romanian gypsies who beat their wives".

The UK Independence Party is today standing by its racist parliamentary candidate for Ilford South Paul Wiffen, saying that since he had “apologised” for his inflammatory remarks about “Left-wing scum”, “Romanian gypsies who beat their wives and children”, “Muslim nutters” and “Africans who sold their Afro-Carribean brothers into slavery”, he was free to carry on. The party has described his comments merely as “mistakes”, insisting they aren’t racist.
 

Wiffen, who has been suspended as UKIP’s London chair but remains a party candidate, posted the abuse on the social work website “Community Care“. He says he did so to rebut “the lies about UKIP being a racist party”, adding: “I just saw red, and fired off an angry email.”

He was immediately condemned by the candidates for the three main parties. Labour incumbent Mike Gapes said there was an “unpleasant whiff about Mr Wiffen”, Tory PPC Toby Boutle said “it says a lot about UKIP that someone like this is their regional chairman in London” and Liberal Democrat candidate Anood Al-Samerai added: “I would not wish to see this man standing in Ilford South.”

  

A spokesman for anti-racism campaign group Hope Not Hate told Left Foot Forward that UKIP had “some very odd views … possibly some of them are racist but not all”. In 2006, Conservative Party leader David Cameron had described UKIP as “closet racists“, telling LBC:

“Ukip is sort of a bunch of … fruit cakes and loonies and closet racists mostly.”

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18 Responses to “The new BNP? UKIP stands by racist PPC”

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  3. Ralph Musgrave

    Given that the Labour Party took part in the slaughter of a million Muslims in Iraq for no good reason, you’re hardly in a position to express views about the possible racist characteristics of other parties.

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