Monday, August 14, 2017
UKIP MEP threatens to resign over leadership candidate
I listened with mounting incredulity yesterday morning as UKIP's Welsh MEP, Nathan Gill told Radio Wales listeners that if anti-Islam campaigner, Anne Marie Waters was elected as leader of his party then he will quit UKIP altogether.
Nathan Gill is also a Welsh Assembly Member, an institution in which he sits as an Independent following his ousting as Welsh Leader by former Tory Minister, Neil Hamilton. He has a distinctly independent and stubborn streak, which is to his credit, as is his stand against extremism and racism.
As the BBC reports, Mr Gill has also criticised the party's delay in addressing concerns raised about UKIP assembly member Michelle Brown, following a row over racial slurs she made about a Labour MP:
The North Wales AM called Streatham MP Chuka Umunna a "coconut" in a recorded call in May 2016 to her then senior adviser Nigel Williams. She later apologised.
Mr Gill claimed the issue, which the party postponed making a decision on at its National Executive Meeting, had been "kicked into the long grass".
"I have said very clearly that I think that Michelle Brown should be expelled from the party," he said.
"We have to show, very clearly, what we are not - and we are not a racist party and I fought so strongly for that."
It is possibly a bit late for that. However, the question has to be asked of Mr Gill, if he finds it so unacceptable to be a member of UKIP led by Anne Marie Waters, how can he remain in a party which allows her to remain a member and stand for leader in the first place?
Nathan Gill is also a Welsh Assembly Member, an institution in which he sits as an Independent following his ousting as Welsh Leader by former Tory Minister, Neil Hamilton. He has a distinctly independent and stubborn streak, which is to his credit, as is his stand against extremism and racism.
As the BBC reports, Mr Gill has also criticised the party's delay in addressing concerns raised about UKIP assembly member Michelle Brown, following a row over racial slurs she made about a Labour MP:
The North Wales AM called Streatham MP Chuka Umunna a "coconut" in a recorded call in May 2016 to her then senior adviser Nigel Williams. She later apologised.
Mr Gill claimed the issue, which the party postponed making a decision on at its National Executive Meeting, had been "kicked into the long grass".
"I have said very clearly that I think that Michelle Brown should be expelled from the party," he said.
"We have to show, very clearly, what we are not - and we are not a racist party and I fought so strongly for that."
It is possibly a bit late for that. However, the question has to be asked of Mr Gill, if he finds it so unacceptable to be a member of UKIP led by Anne Marie Waters, how can he remain in a party which allows her to remain a member and stand for leader in the first place?
