Ralph Atkinson ranted this weekend that Ukip have ‘standards of democracy lower than the unelected European Commission’ after he was allegedly ousted as the Ukip candidate for Hastings and Rye in favour of the wealthy Gogglebox ‘celebrity’ Andrew Michael.
Now Mr S learns of a leaked recording which appears to show Roger Helmer, MEP for Ukip, letting slip the party’s selection stance when it comes to high profile names.
In it he claims that Ukip is prepared to sweep away loyal local candidates for more high profile ones, as was done in the case of Douglas Carswell. Speaking in November at #RepealClimateAct: A Practical UK Energy Policy Event, Helmer said:
‘The problem always you see, you get some high profile candidate, and you go along to the Branch, and you say this is great we’ve got a high-profile candidate and they say yes but Fred Bloggs has been lining up this seat for the last 18 months. So you get into those things. And some Parties are in a position where they can actually say to people move it to one side. Which is actually what we did for Clacton, Carswell.’
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At the time of Carswell’s defection, the Ukip candidate for Clacton Roger Lord threatened to rip Douglas Carswell’s ‘throat out’ if he took his place. Mr Lord had been chosen as Ukip’s candidate for the constituency just three weeks before.
A Ukip spokesman says that the party’s policy is to choose the candidates who are most likely to win. ‘Like any political party we want to field the strongest possible candidate for each seat. In certain limited cases that may be a defector from another political party. All we are saying is that we want to field the best candidate with the best chance of winning.’
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