In the context of his detention in an Edinburgh pub courtesy of Scottish nationalists last week, Nigel Farage told the Today programme that he personally expels racists and homophobes from UKIP:
“If anyone from UKIP says anything on Facebook that is in any way homophobic or mildly racist you guys jump down my throat and demand that I condemn them and expel them from the party, which of course I do.”
But does he really suspend the bigots? When Scrapbook exposed a UKIP council candidate for comparing the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and those who defend Islam to Holocaust deniers last year, the response was not to expel her — but to back her on free speech grounds and claim she had received death threats:
“UKIP does not share her view, nor do we support it. But we do support her right to hold those views.”
Here is a flavour of Some of the UKIP candidates suspended over the past few months:
- Tony Nixon – joked about destroying Mosques and running over Pakistanis
- Anna-Marie Crampton – posted hate group material to UKIP Facebook page
- Chris Scotton — EDL supporter who claimed racism was “ethnic banter”
- Geoffrey Clark — said Down Syndrome babies should be aborted to save money
- Alex Wood – posts under his name claimed African people “disgust him”
Since the local elections, the party’s East Midlands regional chairman and opposition leader on Lincolnshire County Council – who boasted of his confidence of becoming an MP in 2015 — has been exposed by the Sunday Mirror for the following comments on “illegal immigrants”:
“Go home you free-loading, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, baby-making, non-English-speaking ********* and take those other hairy-faced, sandal-wearing, bomb-making, camel-riding, goat-********, raghead ******** with you.’”
The party did not suspend Cllr Chris Pain but instead referenced the, errr, epidemic of computer hacking sweeping UKIP ranks:
“we don’t hang a man until he’s proven guilty and at the moment Chris is saying that his account was hacked.”
Likewise, a new councillor who admitted posting racist material was not suspended by the party — but resigned from Worcester County Council of his own accord:
“We have not completed our investigations. Eric Kitson has not been suspended from the party.”
So does Farage really expel racist candidates — as he claims — or does he simply wait for the media to move on?
