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:
- Godfrey Bloom MEP left UKIP after he described a group of female party members as ‘sluts’ and hit Channel 4 News presenter Michael Crick over the head with a copy of the conference brochure. Before these incidents, Bloom was already in the public spotlight for claiming that the UK should not be sending aid to ‘bongo bongo land’. More recently, he shocked those present at an Oxford Union debate in January by asking a disabled student if he was ‘Richard III’.
- 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.
- Chris Pain, a county councillor in Lincolnshire, was removed as leader of the UKIP group in September (and was then removed from the party altogether) after being investigated by the police for allegedly posting racist comments on Facebook.
- Winston McKenzie, a by-election candidate in Croydon North in November 2012, claimed that allowing same-sex couples to adopt children was ‘unhealthy‘.
- Philip Rose, a candidate who said that ‘gay folk’ were ‘being used by forces of evil’ to stop UKIP’s progress.
- Henry Reilly, a councillor in Northern Ireland, claimed that a ‘militant gay lobby’ was trying to impose itself on Christian churches. He also pledged to ‘support Assad’ in a tweet about the situation in Syria in September.
- John Sullivan, a council candidate in Gloucestershire, said that regular physical exercise in schools can ‘prevent homosexuality‘.
- 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”
Frankie D.
Again, how do they promote your party if they hardly ever show up to work?
On the rare occation when they do actually show up, they vote to make the lives of their voters more difficult. See http://stuartbonar.org/2014/03/16/ukip-votes-to-make-your-life-more-difficult/
Thomas F. Lopez
You can promote UKIP from home. I try my best to.
“This is a backwards step because imposing a single charger stifles innovation, curbs research, and may impose extra costs on the consumer. The alternative and better action is to encourage diversity, competition and greater development.”
Thomas F. Lopez
Oh please stop being so deliberately difficult. You know what I’m talking about. I have no problem if UKIP, Labour, the Conservatives or even fringe parties like the Lib Dems use taxpayer funded roads, or meet in taxpayer funded places. But for a ‘comedy tour’ that is political propaganda is going to perform in venues that are funded by the taxpayer, when there are a wealth or more talented and interesting people and shows that could go on instead, I think that is wrong. It is funded by the Arts Council. The Stop UKIP Tour is not art it is propaganda, timed to coincide with the Euro Election campaign. It’s as pathetic and transparent as the Daily Mail and Telegraph’s smear campaigns against UKIP.
Frankie D.
It isn’t funded by the Arts Council. You’ve already admitted that, so stop lying.
You really are scared you two guys and a guitar, aren’t you? That’s pathetic. I thought you were supposed to be a political party, rather than a bunch of cowardly bullies.
“the Daily Mail and Telegraph’s smear campaigns against UKIP.” If it wasn’t for all the coverage you’ve gotten from them, UKIP would barely exist. UKIP was propped up by the right wing media as a way to push the tories further to the right, and now you’re cutting into the tory vote, you’re being discarded, as was always the plan.
Frankie D.
I would hope you don’t try to make a living off of the taxpayers for what you do at home. By not showing up to do their jobs, ukip shows just how little they care about voters and show how much of a joke their party is.
Even you’ve got to see that that quote is utter rubbish. No company is competing on chargers and if everyone only needed one charger for any phone, then they could be sold without one, saving money for the consumer.