Janice Atkinson is just the latest example of Ukip’s persistent problem with candidates

Ukip is in crisis once again. Today’s Sun reveals that Janice Atkinson, an MEP for the South East and PPC for Folkestone and Hythe, has been suspended and may face a police enquiry over a fake receipt from a Margate restaurant. The party appears to be washing its hands of Atkinson, with Guido reporting she has been advised to find legal counsel. On LBC this morning, Nigel Farage distanced himself from Atkinson, saying he was ‘deeply shocked’ by her actions, describing them as ‘one of the most incredibly stupid and dishonest things I’ve ever seen in my life’: 

‘We have suspended Janice Atkinson and we will hold a disciplinary hearing as soon as possible which will be chaired independently by somebody from the legal profession. There’ll be representatives of the national executive of Ukip there and we will ask the questions and we will judge. It would be a mistake for me to pre-judge this but on the evidence of what that member of staff did it does not look very good.’

Farage said he spoke to Atkinson ‘after midnight last night, she was in bed’ but said he ‘didn’t get a clear answer’ because ‘she was asleep when I called’. The party is holding a disciplinary hearing on Monday so we’ll find out then if she is out of the party for good.

The problem for Ukip is that this isn’t a one off. Atkinson is the latest in a stream of candidates creating public relations disasters for the party. She was already in the soup after describing a Thai constituent as a ‘ting tong’ in the recent BBC documentary Meet the Ukippers. Here are some of the instances over the past two years when Ukip candidates or elected representatives have been suspended or sacked:

• April 2013: Anna-Marie Crampton suspended as council candidate after claiming that Jews murdered each other in the Holocaust. She denied making the claims, saying her Twitter account had been hacked
• September 2013: Godfrey Bloom MEP suspended after describing a room full of women as ‘sluts’ and hitting Michael Crick over the head.
• September 2013: Lincolnshire council leader Cllr. Chris Pain removed after a ‘serious issue’ between Pain and party HQ.
• January 2014: Cllr. David Silvester suspended after claiming floods were caused by gay marriage. He was later expelled from Ukip.
• May 2014: Cllr. Dave Small suspended after a series of offensive tweets.
• May 2014: Dover council candidate Harry Perry suspended after calling David Cameron a ‘gay-loving nutcase’.
• December 2014: Kerry Smith resigned as PPC for South Basildon and East Thurrock after his offensive remarks about gay people and other Ukip members.
• December 2014: Roger Bird resigned as Ukip general secretary after sexual harassment allegations. He was later cleared of impropriety.
• December 2014: Winston McKenzie suspended as the chair of the Lambeth & Croydon branch. He was then replaced this month as the party’s Commonwealth spokesman.
• January 2015: Amjad Bashir MEP suspended over ‘extremely serious’ financial issues before defecting to the Conservative party. Bashir denied any wrongdoing.
• February 2015: Rozanne Duncan expelled after ‘deeply racist comments’ on BBC documentary Meet the Ukippers.
• February 2015: Cllr. Robert Ray suspended and stood down as chair of Thurrock branch after drink driving conviction.
• March 2015: Janice Atkinson MEP suspended over expenses claim

The timing is particularly bad as Ukip is simultaneously dealing with remarks from its sole MEP in Scotland David Coburn, who has had to apologise after describing a Scottish government minister as ‘Humza Yousaf, or as I call him, Abu Hamza.’

Ukip tend to claim this sort of thing is a result of the biased media devoting a disproportionate amount of effort to finding figures in Ukip with controversial views. They may be right that other political parties also have figures with controversial views, but it is problematic for Ukip because it tries to be an anti-politics party that doesn’t conform to the scandals and patterns of modern Westminster politics. Plus, many already suspect the party is full of people with such views.

Although the party’s reputation is rarely dented by these stories, each time there is another expenses scandal, it gradually adds to the notion that Ukip is in fact, no more of an outsider party than the Tories or Labour. It’s unlikely that Atkinson will have any impact on Ukip’s election result but with the party set to shortly announce its economic policy to boost its credibility, another expenses scandal is precisely not what it wants right now.

UPDATE: Another Ukip candidate has been suspended — the party’s second in just 24 hours. Sky News is reporting that Stephen Howd, the Ukip PPC in Scunthorpe, has been suspended pending an investigation into an ‘alleged incident at his workplace.’