Memo to Republicans: Conservatives in the UK can teach you a thing or two about rebranding. After UK Councillor David Silvester blamed recent flooding in England on the LGBT community, the UK Independence Party suspended him from its ranks. Now the UKIP has gone one step further and thrown Silvester out of the party altogether.
At a tumultuous council meeting in Henley, Silvester refused to back down from his remarks. The party said as a result throwing him out of the party was the only solution.
“Because he was an elected official representing UKIP, we take the view that his expression of views was unacceptable and in order to distance UKIP from those views permanently and irrevocably, we have no choice but to expel Mr Silvester,” the party said in a statement.
Silvester linked marriage equality to weather conditions last month. “I wrote to [Prime Minister] David Cameron in April 2012 to warn him that disasters would accompany the passage of his same-sex marriage bill,” Silvester wrote in a letter to a local paper. “But he went ahead despite a 600,000-signature petition by concerned Christians and more than half of his own parliamentary party saying that he should not do so.”
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The good news to come out of the controversy: it also proves that the UK has a sense of humor. A campaign to make “It’s Raining Men” hit the top of the UK pop charts met with some success. The song peaked at number 31.
Ron Jackson
The “concerned christians” raise their ugly heads again.
litper
UKIP is still batshit crazy homophobes, they’re as bad as France’s FN if not worse.
Q3
I think some peoples reaction to UKIP is funny. I will remind Queerty readers that “Conservative” in America does not mean the same thing as “Conservative” in other parts of the world. The Conservative Party in the UK is descended from the old wig Party much like the Republican party here in the US. While UKIP is more akin to the Libertarian party which was not a split from the republican party but the founding of a new party all together with radically different social and economic philosophies.
Further there is another important distinction to be made. UKIP is portrayed in American media as “Right whing” again the United Kingdom is NOT America. Right wing and left wing refer to parliament and weather someone sits on the right or on the left side of parliament. The farther to the right side someone sits the more they support monarchy while the farther someone sits to the left the more they support republicanism or what used to be known here in the US as Democratic-Republicanism. (The Democratic Party here in the US was known as the Democratic-Republican party until about 1870.) UKIP is a Democratic-Libertarian Party.
British politics is more complicated that politics here in the US as there are not “only” two options. For example the house of Lord’s is not the Senate and is hereditary for the most part (UKIP 9 of 72 seats). House of commons UKIP has 3 of 724 seats). In the UK and most of the world you have political parties and political alliances. litper’s accusation of UKIP is as far as I can tell is completely unfounded.
iltman
@Q3: I hope you don’t mind Q3 but as a Brit I would like to correct a few misapprehensions, the conservative party has evolved from the old Tory party, it’s the Liberal party that developed from the old Whigs. As for UKIP, the party has grown as a basis for disaffected Tories mainly due to the question of the UKs relationship with Europe, however many members of UKIP also left the conservatives due to the leaderships support for gay rights especially marriage rights, UKIP is absolutely opposed to equal marriage and many UKIP members have expressed homophobic sentiments in the past
nichols evelyn
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Cam
Meanwhile here a GOP Congressman talks about legitimate rape, and claims women can’t get pregnant from rape and the presidential candidate Romney refused to disavow him and party leader Huckabee endorses him.
Mezaien
What you expecting from “P.O.M.E`S.
alanj
@Mezaien:
Isn’t it POHM’s ( Prisoners of Her Majesty) or are you referring to something else?
SteveDenver
It’s amazing when old farts won’t back down from stupid statements. We see it all the time in the U.S.: conservatives doubling-down on absurdity.
Dakotahgeo
@Q3: AMEN to this. Most GLBT persons’ knowledge of our own system stinks, much less that of world politics! It’s to laugh!
Dakotahgeo
@Cam: That, more than anything is why they lost so badly in 2012, and they obviously still haven’t learned their lessons!