The UK Independence Party has allowed far-right activist and leadership candidate Anne Marie Waters to stand for election, despite a UKIP party policy that bans members linked to extremist groups. And even if Waters does not win her main rival, UKIP’s deputy leader Peter Whittle shares many of her anti-Islamic cultural views.
Having played a crucial role in pushing Britain into Brexit, UKIP has now entered a battle over its identity that could see it descend into a militant hard-Right group or fade into the obscurity suggested by its catastrophic collapse at the June general election to just 1.8 per cent of the vote from 12.6 per cent in 2015.
Nigel Farage has ruled out any imminent return to the party’s leadership, warning it would “return to being an amateur shambles” unless it replaced the “totally unqualified people” who he says now control its internal structures.
The loss of Farage, who has been something of a uniting figure for the party, is likely to scatter votes in its new leadership election across several minority factions of the party.
Many members are worried that more radical members may see extremism as a means of survival, with UKIP’s standing as a bona fide political party being hijacked by neo-fascists when the result is declared in September.
Anne Marie Waters
The anti-Islam activist was selected as UKIP’s candidate for the London seat of Lewisham East at this year’s general election but leader Paul Nuttall had her dropped in April, saying that her views on Islam went “way above and beyond party policy”.
Her candidacy for UKIP leader has been credited for a large influx of new UKIP members who share her radical views.
She founded Sharia Watch UK in 2014 and is a leading member of anti-Islam group Pegida UK with English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson.
The Guardian reported that she could be behind 1000 new members who joined UKIP in just two weeks in June. “It’s possible that in a multi-horse race without a favourite, an election would be won with 5,000 votes,” said a UKIP spokesman. “So 1,000 new members in just two weeks is potentially a fair way towards distorting the result.”
Her leadership campaign was quietly launched in a village hall in Rotherham after the town’s New York Stadium cancelled her July 1 booking. UKIP has insisted this was not an official party event and urged members to think carefully before attending.
The party’s 15-strong National Executive Committee has now voted by a majority to allow all candidates through to the members’ vote including Waters. Previously Raheem Kassam, a Right-wing journalist and former UKIP leadership candidate claimed that the party would be finished if it vetoed her.
It is speculated that if she won Farage and other senior party members would resign. Just a day after she was approved by the NEC one of the party’s Members of the European Parliament Mike Hookem resigned from his post as the party’s deputy whip in the European parliament.
Peter Whittle
The deputy UKIP leader is a Farage ally and frontrunner to win the leadership who shares much of Waters’s agenda.
After the NEC all-clear for Waters, the betting house Ladbrokes had Whittle at 4-6, Waters at 3-1 and John Rees-Evans, an activisit who came third in the November 2016 leadership election, at 8-1.
The leader of UKIP’s two-members team on the London Assembly, Whittle was the only gay candidate of any party in the 2016 London Mayoral election.
Whittle has an anti-Muslim cultural agenda having founded the think tank New Culture Forum. “At a time of threat from extremism, the West finds itself besieged from within and without,” says the think tank’s website.
“Too often our enemies and our opinion formers appear to agree that Western culture is an indefensible horror. This is nonsense. The West is in fact a unique bastion of reasoned freedom. Britain in particular should be proud of the great role it has played in Western education, art and culture.”
Whittle believes the party can prosper in traditionally Labour areas of London by calling for cuts to immigration and foreign aid and campaigning against radical Islam.
by Stewart Vickers
The post Politics: UKIP Backs Anti-Islam Candidates appeared first on Felix Magazine.
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