UKIP Scottish chair told to have counselling for saying Glasgow Council for ‘gays and Communists’
A senior figure at UKIP Scotland has demanded that the party’s interim chair go to counselling after he said Glasgow Council was for “gays, Catholics and Communists.”
Johathan Stanley, UKIP Scotland head of policy, demanded that Arthur Misty Thackeray, acting chair in Scotland should use a charity’s anti-sectarian counselling project after he made comments about the council in an online rant back in 2011 – they came to light this week.
“There’s more chance of winning the lottery two weeks running than getting an openly Rangers-supporting MSP into the chamber of the institutionally catholicised pretendy parliament … lol,” he wrote.
Attacking the city council, Thackeray went on: “No wonder the blue half of my city say GCC actually stands for the Glasgow Celtic Council for gays Catholics Communists eh. Lol. NS!”
Mr Stanley has since written to Mr Thackeray saying that he should engage with Nil By Mouth charity’s anti-sectarianism ‘Beyond Religion and Belief’ project.
According to reports, UKIP has denied that the request was given on behalf of the party, and that Mr Stanley acted without authority to do so.
A Nil By Mouth spokesperson has given a statement, however, confirming that the charity has received the request.
He said: “We’ve received a request from Ukip in London for its Scottish branch to engage with our sectarianism awareness programme.
“We will give this request due consideration should the Scottish branch follow up this contact.”
Another member of UKIP, LGBT wing head Thomas Booker also said that he should “reconsider his membership” with the party.
He said:”I think that if he is hostile to homosexuals and sees same-sex people as in opposition to him, then he needs to reconsider his position in the party. I will always defend people’s right to freedom of speech but saying things which are against the party’s beliefs is intolerable.
“These comments are not helpful and we can see that John Stanley has reacted very quickly which is good to see, by himself ordering Thackeray to go along to some of counselling sessions at the charity.”
Mr Silvester also claimed in an interview defending his views that more children have been “murdered” as a result of abortion laws than the number of Jews killed in by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Yesterday, UKIP leader Nigel Farage defended the party’s decision to suspend Mr Silvester.
