UKIP candidate facing gay Tory Mike Freer: David Cameron destroyed marriage and waged war on Christians
The candidate selected by UKIP to face gay Conservative Mike Freer at the next general election is a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage who has repeatedly hit out at David Cameron’s “liberalism” in supporting marriage equality.
Andrew Price, who will face Mr Freer in the Finchley and Golders Green constituency, made the comments posted to the Daily Telegraph, Spectator and Guido Fawkes websites, among others.
He also spoke of “militant homosexuals” and repeatedly hit out at immigrants ‘swamping’ the country.
Mr Price criticised Cameron’s “attack on Christianity by destroying the institution of marriage”, previously writing: “As a former Conservative member and activist for 40 years or so I will never return to the Conservative Party.
“Cameron and the Tories have destroyed marriage and are waging war on the Christian faith and on Christians.”
In another post, Mr Price wrote: “Putting aside the rights and wrongs of same sex marriage (actually there are no rights about it), Cameron without any electoral mandate forced through a measure in a haughty and arbitrary manner as any authoritarian king would do.”
In other posts, Mr Price said that the Wood Green district of North London was “swamped with Eastern European immigrants and illegals from a host of other countries”.
He added: “Virtually every evening when the weather is half decent Eastern Europeans congregate outside our development of private flats to drink, smoke, eat and vomit.
“Most mornings the detritus of their activities are left for others to clear up.
“Some months ago my wife was walking down the street where she was nearly robbed by a group of Roma women.”
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He added that any flight of BNP voters to UKIP was “a jolly good thing”.
Mr Freer told PinkNews that there was no place for a man who is “homophobic”, “anti-immigrant” and “pro-BNP voters joining UKIP” in his constituency.
“Finchley & Golders Green is a constituency that is diverse, tolerant and built on immigration,” he said.
“For UKIP to select a man with abhorrent hard right views is unbelievable.”
Mr Freer and his partner Angelo Crolla had a civil partnership in 2007, converting it into a marriage in January 2015.
A UKIP spokesman told PinkNews: “Mr Price is our candidate and a good candidate too.
“We understand that in a democracy one can be heartily opposed to certain policies, it is the very essence of freedom and toleration means that one accepts what one is opposed to, not as seems to the current reading, slavishly follow whatever it is the person pointing the finger happens to believe.
“So he opposes gay marriage as a thing, fearing that it undermines the concept of marriage as understood for hundreds if not thousands of years.
“Not really controversial, and certainly not in a way that implies any harm to those such as Mr Freer who have contracted such a marriage. UKIP as a party have no intention of turning back the legal clock.”
Regarding Mr Price’s views on immigration, the spokesman added: “The fact is that mass inward migration from the EU has caused significant social problems in many parts of the UK, and as Mr Price points out, nobody was ever asked permission for our society to be changed so radically.”
Mr Freer won the seat of Finchley and Golders Green in 2010 with 46.0 percent of the vote, following the death of Labour’s Rudi Vis who had been the constituency’s MP since 1997.
He retained the seat in 2015, increasing his share of the vote to 50.9 percent.
Also standing in Finchley and Golders Green in the June 8 General Election are Jonathan Maurice Davies for the Liberal Democrats, Jeremy James Newmark for the Labour Party and Adele Ward for the Green Party.
Mr Freer came out as gay to fellow MPs during a speech in the debates over the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. The speech drew widespread praise from the LGBT community.
“I thought long and hard about seeking to speak in this debate. I genuinely feared the tone of the debate and how colleagues would seek to oppose the bill,” he said.
“So when colleagues talked about gay marriage making them physically sick… They need to remember that they’re people involved – people’s lives are involved – and we should remember that the words spoken in this chamber hurt far beyond this chamber when we speak.”
Freer has continued to support the LGBT community as an MP, recently criticising NHS “prejudice over life choices” in the continued debate over the supply of HIV-preventing PrEP drugs to gay men.
