UKIP: a history of cranks and oddballs

Donna Edmunds, a UKIP councillor and candidate in the European elections, has said that businesses should be able to refuse services to women and gay people. She isn't the first UKIP candidate to court controversy.

Fresh controversy has been sparked after Donna Edmunds, a UKIP councillor in Lewes and a candidate for the party in the European elections, said that businesses should be able to refuse services to women and gay people (she now says she regrets the comments).

Edmunds expressed this opinion in response to a question on whether she supported David Silvester, the UKIP councillor for Henley-on-Thames who claimed that the recent storms and floods were caused by the government’s introduction of gay marriage.

These are just the latest in a long line of gaffes by UKIP candidates and representatives.

Here are some previous examples:

  • Geoffrey Clarke, a candidate in council elections in Kent, was suspended by the party in December 2012 after calling for an NHS review to look into whether foetuses with Down’s syndrome and spina bifida should be compulsorily aborted.
  • Eric Kitson, a UKIP councillor on Worcestershire County Council, resigned in May last year after it was discovered that he had been posting racist and anti-Muslim cartoons on Facebook.
  • Anna-Marie Crampton, a candidate in council elections in East Sussex, was suspended by the party after making anti-Semitic comments in April last year, in which she claimed that the Jews deliberately organised the Second World War and sacrificed their own people in the Holocaust.

There are also the claims which have been made about the party’s leader Nigel Farage. As the party’s conference started in September last year, an alleged incident was brought to light from 1981 (when Farage was a member of the cadet force at his school, Dulwich College) in which he and others are supposed to have marched around a Sussex village singing Hitler Youth songs.

Channel 4 News also uncovered a letter from around this time, in which a teacher at Dulwich College claimed that Farage held “publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views” and expressed concern that he had been made a prefect.

Considering the phenomenon of the ‘rogue’ UKIP member is seemingly never ending, perhaps the cranks and oddballs are less the exception, but rather the rule.

87 Responses to “UKIP: a history of cranks and oddballs”

  1. fubarroso

    Would you care to list all the Labour MP’s and councillors that have transgressed? Quite a few of them imprisoned or still under investigation. Much more serious crimes than being politically incorrect.

  2. jboy

    Diane Abbott…..David Cameron and George Osbourne ”are just 2 posh WHITE boys”. Now i dont vote for the tories but this stinks of double standards when any labour person uses the word ‘racist’, does it not?

  3. hermann kelly

    Labour Expenses Cheats

    MPs formally endorsed a report condemning Mr MacShane for
    false expense claims filed between 2005 and 2008 – and backed a one-year
    suspension despite the former Foreign Office minister quitting the Commons on
    Monday

    Source: http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/mps-condemn-labour-expenses-cheat-denis-macshane-1-2617998

    Three Labour-supporting peers face being suspended from the Lords after an
    investigation into claims that they were expenses cheats.

    Two are understood to have been ordered to pay back £154,000 in expenses between
    them, while the third has already returned £38,000.

    The penalties follow an inquiry into the conduct of Baroness Uddin, Britain’s first
    female Muslim peer, steel tycoon Lord Paul, a close friend of Gordon Brown, and
    fellow millionaire Lord Bhatia, who has given money to Labour.

    All three were accused of pretending their main homes were away from London, allowing them to falsely claim the £174 overnight grant for peers who live outside the capital.

    Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1321200/Labour-expense-cheat-peers-facing-Lords-ban.html#ixzz2IbZ5KJYT

    Expenses cheat MP Jim Devine has been released from prison after serving just a quarter
    of his sentence, sources said.

    The former Labour MP for Livingston, who was jailed for 16 months in March after
    being branded a liar by his trial judge, was released from Standford Hill
    prison in Kent on Monday morning.

    He spent four months behind bars after submitting false invoices totalling £8,385
    between 2008 and 2009 – after politicians’ claims had already become front-page
    news.

    It is understood that Devine, 58, was freed under the home detention curfew scheme,
    which allows prisoners who pose a low risk to be tagged and released early
    after serving at least a quarter of their sentence.

    Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/01/expenses-cheat-mp-jim-devine-released
    Hazel Blears was fighting for her job yesterday after revelations that she avoided paying
    £18,000 in tax on the sale of a taxpayer-funded home.
    The Communities Secretary sold her flat in Kennington, London,
    in August 2004 for a £45,000 profit. It had been designated as her second home,
    allowing her to claim thousands of pounds in mortgage interest and running
    costs. But the MP did not pay any capital gains tax (CGT) on the windfall
    because she told the taxman it was her main home. CGT has to be paid on profit
    from the sale of any property not classified as a “main residence” – meaning Ms
    Blears could have faced a bill of £18,000.

    Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mps-expenses-scandal-hazel-blears-393293

  4. hermann kelly

    And perhaps you have heard of Harriet Harmon? The organisation of which she was a member, along with other Labour Party activists gave an easy ride to a gang of paedophilia promoters? Has the Labour Party leader apologised for this stance? Nope.

  5. UKIP Kiddie

    Carry on boys! The more rubbish you throw our way the stronger we grow as the British public see the blind panic the political establishment is in about us. The day of reckoning is coming for the Lib/Lab/Con.

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