Tuesday, April 08, 2014
UKIP lose key activist
The Independent reports that a woman who was heralded as the “future face” of Ukip says she can no longer face campaigning for the party because of their illiberal stance on immigration.
The paper says that Alexandra Swann was supposed to represent the party's new, younger membership when she publicly defected from the Conservatives at Ukip's spring conference in 2012. At that conference Nigel Farage introduced her to a jubilant party faithful, boasting: "I'm very pleased to say that the Swann has migrated to Ukip".
However, UKIP's increasingly incendiary rhetoric on immigration has apparently pushed the 25 year old Ms Swann away:
She says: "The focus moved to immigration. It was difficult with the anti-gay marriage stuff. Now so much of their argument is anti-immigration which didn't sit well with me.
"The rhetoric wasn't so much about it when I joined. I think we should be discriminating on the skill level [of immigrants] as opposed to what country they're from."
So UKIP will have to fall back on their base of white elderly middle class males for votes after all.
The paper says that Alexandra Swann was supposed to represent the party's new, younger membership when she publicly defected from the Conservatives at Ukip's spring conference in 2012. At that conference Nigel Farage introduced her to a jubilant party faithful, boasting: "I'm very pleased to say that the Swann has migrated to Ukip".
However, UKIP's increasingly incendiary rhetoric on immigration has apparently pushed the 25 year old Ms Swann away:
She says: "The focus moved to immigration. It was difficult with the anti-gay marriage stuff. Now so much of their argument is anti-immigration which didn't sit well with me.
"The rhetoric wasn't so much about it when I joined. I think we should be discriminating on the skill level [of immigrants] as opposed to what country they're from."
So UKIP will have to fall back on their base of white elderly middle class males for votes after all.
