Friday, September 07, 2018
UKIP crossing a line
The fact that Ukip’s annual conference could debate whether to lift a ban on the anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson becoming a member, tells us all we need to know about that party's move to the far right.
As the Guardian reports, under long-established party rules, former members of the English Defence League, which was formed by Robinson, are banned from joining, along with people who belonged to the British National party.
But Ukip’s leader, Gerard Batten, has strongly backed Robinson, a self-styled freedom-of-speech activist whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, likening him to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.
The paper says that the party’s national executive committee will discuss motions this weekend to be voted on at the conference in Birmingham, one of which will ask whether Robinson should be allowed to join.
They add that some senior party members are known to greatly dislike Batten’s support for Robinson, but others are keen to link the party to Robinson, who was freed on bail in August pending a new hearing on whether he was in contempt of court by broadcasting details of a trial subject to reporting restrictions:
He had already been given a suspended sentence for committing contempt during a rape trial in Canterbury after attempting to film the defendants.
Alan Craig, Ukip’s families and children spokesman, told the Kipper Central website that Robinson had become “a global phenomenon representing those who have been excluded and silenced by the globalist liberal elite”.
The Guardian says that the motion comes amid a more general shift in focus for Ukip under Batten, who took over the leadership in February. He has referred to Islam as a “death cult” and has called Muhammad a paedophile.
They add that Batten has also allowed a trio of controversial social media activists into the party, including Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars, a far-right US conspiracy theory website which has argued the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was a hoax involving child actors.
This is the fringe party UKIP have become, have always been at its core.
As the Guardian reports, under long-established party rules, former members of the English Defence League, which was formed by Robinson, are banned from joining, along with people who belonged to the British National party.
But Ukip’s leader, Gerard Batten, has strongly backed Robinson, a self-styled freedom-of-speech activist whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, likening him to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.
The paper says that the party’s national executive committee will discuss motions this weekend to be voted on at the conference in Birmingham, one of which will ask whether Robinson should be allowed to join.
They add that some senior party members are known to greatly dislike Batten’s support for Robinson, but others are keen to link the party to Robinson, who was freed on bail in August pending a new hearing on whether he was in contempt of court by broadcasting details of a trial subject to reporting restrictions:
He had already been given a suspended sentence for committing contempt during a rape trial in Canterbury after attempting to film the defendants.
Alan Craig, Ukip’s families and children spokesman, told the Kipper Central website that Robinson had become “a global phenomenon representing those who have been excluded and silenced by the globalist liberal elite”.
The Guardian says that the motion comes amid a more general shift in focus for Ukip under Batten, who took over the leadership in February. He has referred to Islam as a “death cult” and has called Muhammad a paedophile.
They add that Batten has also allowed a trio of controversial social media activists into the party, including Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars, a far-right US conspiracy theory website which has argued the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was a hoax involving child actors.
This is the fringe party UKIP have become, have always been at its core.
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