The USA is not the only country where politicians are forced to retract a stupid statement. Nigel Farage, leader of the Euro-phobic party UKIP has been forced to "clarify" his comments in a yet to be broadcast interview in which he called for the abolition of existing laws banning discrimination on the grounds of race or national origin.
Mr Farage was forced to defend comments he made in a Channel 4 documentary: Things We Won't Say About Race That Are True, with ex-equalities watchdog chief Trevor Phillips, due to be shown next week. Mr Farage said concern over preventing racial discrimination in employment "would probably have been valid" 40 years ago.
"If I talked to my children... about the question of race, they wouldn't know what I was talking about," he was reported to have gone on to say. He said he would get rid of "much of" existing legislation.
Asked if he (would) retain bans on discrimination on the grounds of race or colour, he said: "No... because we take the view, we are colour-blind. We as a party are colour-blind."
This morning Farage has been doing the rounds trying to unsay what he is yet to be broadcast saying. He was interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 flagship news show "Today" which is a mainstay of political broadcasting:
Asked about his remarks on Today, Mr Farage said: "My comments have been wilfully misinterpreted. I have made no comments about the Race Relations Act at all.
"I have made comments in favour of British people getting jobs over and above those from southern eastern Europe."
The UKIP leader said he was speaking up for Britain's unemployed youth "both black and white", saying the young black community had suffered the biggest rise in unemployment as a result of immigration.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/...
Like the US Congresscritters who are unaware of the status of the talks with Iran under the aegis of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Farage appears unaware that the Race Relations Act outlaws discrimination on the grounds of both age, ethnic origins and national origin.
UKIP has an unfortunate record with is candidates. Under three weeks ago, it was revealed it had been forced to expel a local councillor because of statements that were about to be broadcast:
In the fly-on-the-wall documentary, Mrs Duncan was recorded as telling UKIP press officer Liz Langton Way: "The only people I do have problems with are negroes. And I don't know why.
"I don't know whether there is something in my psyche or whether it's karma from a previous life or whether something happened to me as a very, very young person and I've drawn a veil over it - because that sometimes happens, doesn't it?
"But I really do have a problem with people with negroid features."
In August 2013, the party had to issue a ban on the use of the phrase "Bongo Bongo Land" after offensive remarks by one of its (now ex-) Members of the European Parliament,
Godfrey Bloom:
UKIP chairman Steve Crowther said Bongo Bongo Land was an "outdated description of foreign parts".
In footage obtained by the Guardian, recorded last month at a meeting in Wordsley, West Midlands, Mr Bloom said: "How we can possibly be giving £1bn a month, when we're in this sort of debt, to Bongo Bongo Land is completely beyond me.
"To buy Ray-Ban sunglasses, apartments in Paris, Ferraris and all the rest of it that goes with most of the foreign aid.
Bloom also
tried to justify his position on the BBC Today Programme:
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Bloom was unrepentant.
Asked what he would do if he was criticised by the Ukip leadership Mr Bloom said: “I’d say righto, sorry, sorry everybody. If I’ve offended anybody in bongo bongo land I shall write to the ambassador at the Court of St James and apologise to him personally.”
After laughing Mr Bloom added: “My job is to upset the Guardian and the BBC. I love it. I love it.”
Today presenter James Naughtie replied: “You’re not upsetting anyone here. It’s quite entertaining in fact.”
The sensitivity of the offensive phrase seems to have passed over the head of one of their candidates for the general election
in December 2014:
A Ukip candidate who posted a map on his Facebook page which calls Africa 'Bongo Bongo Land' has been banned from speaking at a secondary school following protests by parents.
David Little, parliamentary candidate for Dover and Deal in Kent, caused outrage last month after he posted a spoof 'Ukip map of the world' on his social media account.
Mr Little, a father-of-two, has now said 'mob rule' has prevailed after Castle Community College in Deal and Walmer withdrew its invitation to him to give a lecture about the importance of democracy.
It's perhaps not a coincidence that the two articles reporting sympathetically were the Telegraph and Daily Mail which have a track record of reporting "attacks on the politically incorrect by the left wing media". Little had in fact reproduced an anti-UKIP cartoon showing their political view of the world. UKIP claims this was showing his self deprecating side.
Others consider it yet another example of the casual racism that pervades the party.