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.
They don’t even promote UKIP, they just don’t show up! You are paying people to actively not help you.
Frankie D.
The allegations aren’t that she did nothing to stop a paedophile gang, as even the mail knows that isn’t true. It’s that she was part of an organisation that a dodgy group joined until they were booted out once their dodginess became apparent. The telegraph published the story in 2009, and there was nothing to it, the mail published the same story in Dec 2013, and there was nothing to it, and then the mail published it again a couple of months later, still nothing to it but the tories were obviously pushing for it as a smokescreen.
“eccentric UKIP members” -It’s not just the members, is it? It’s the leadership as well. Just days after Nige defends a racist comic at the ukip conference, your deputy leader tries to get a tour by Jonny And The Baptists shut down. Not to mention your “Commonwealth Spokesman” turning out to be the leader of a kidnapping gang…
Thomas F. Lopez
No, just that most of the media is baised to the left and is reluctant to publish stories that might harm the Labour party. You can’t deny if the allegations involved Nigel it would be all over the BBC news. And again, what about Diane Abbott?
Oh come on, that was called the ‘Stop UKIP tour’. It is fascist behavior to try and silence free speech. Are you trying to make life easy for me? The “Commonwealth Spokesman” had no power in UKIP more than myself, and not to mention he was ex Tory. Just like Mr. Sylvester said all sorts of crazy things when he was a Tory councilor and nobody cared then.
Thomas F. Lopez
Well Paul Nutall doesn’t show up much but I don’t care because he does so much to promote the party.
Frankie D.
Yes, that notoriously lefty telegraph and daily mail… Not to mention the week or so it was all over the BBC.
You’re trying to argue that it’s free speech to try and shut down someone elses free speech? Either you’re just taking the piss or you have some serious mental health issues that need looking into…