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”
Thomas F. Lopez
OK, I don’t know how much more simple I can make it. If you don’t understand what I wrote, then maybe you shouldn’t be debating? I’m not scared, just cautious, the left have won the emotional argument, thus people argue by shouting “racist” these days and anyone non-leftist is constantly on the back foot thanks to the false words put into our mouths by propagandists like Jonny and the Baptists. It’s hard to argue with facts when someone is shouting abuse, but the British people are waking up.
Whatever, if we go, the Tories become liberal again. Pretty stupid plan. But no, we need to stop talking about UKIP splitting the Tory vote. The Tories are finished. We need to start talking about the Tories splitting the UKIP vote.
Thomas F. Lopez
So long as they promote UKIP, that’s what matters.
Well phone chargers are outside my political knowledge, and right now I’m too tired to look into it. Point is, I support UKIP on the issues that really matter to this country.
Frankie D.
Do they receive money from the taxpayer? You’ve admitted that they don’t. Therefore they are not in any way “taxpayer funded”.
Maybe if UKIP didn’t keep promoting racists, then possibly they wouldn’t have to deal with being called out on it so often.
The tories haven’t been in any way liberal for decades. “Tories are finished. We need to start talking about the Tories splitting the UKIP vote.” And we see again how seriously deluded you are. Are you sure it’s not a medical problem? UKIP haven’t got a single MP, and yet you think you’re doing better than the tories? True, they’re going to be out of power for the next generation or so, but ukip will be out of power for a hell of a lot longer.
Frankie D.
Not them doing their jobs, then? How pathetic.
Do you not own a mobile phone? Why did you back a quote about them if you didn’t know if it was valid or not? Which issues that really matter to the country have the ukip MEPs been voting on lately then?
Thomas F. Lopez
They are taxpayer subsidized.
Promoting racists? I thought that was Labour’s job?
Well UKIP are rapidly rising, and I believe they represent more than 70% of the British people. Sadly the media’s mud slinging has stuck. Until now…