Lord Heseltine turns down debate with UKIP's Amjad Bashir over racism jibe

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24385139

UKIP is not a racist party, Lord Heseltine told

A UKIP candidate and spokesman has lambasted former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Heseltine for branding the party "racist".

UKIP's Amjad Bashir challenged Lord Heseltine to a debate which he turned down.

The Tory peer's comments came after rows involving their former European Parliament member Godfrey Bloom.

But Amjad Bashir, running for the European Parliament, told said he was "incensed" by Lord Heseltine.

Speaking on BBC Two's Daily Politics, Mr Bashir, who is of Pakistani origin, asked: "If this was a racist party, would they select me?"

UKIP, which calls for withdrawal from the European Union and greater restrictions on immigration, has enjoyed much-improved opinion poll ratings in recent months and is expected to gain seats at next year's European Parliament elections.

But it has come under greater media scrutiny, with much focus on the description of countries receiving overseas aid as "bongo bongo land" by MEP Godfrey Bloom, who has since had the party whip withdrawn following separate comments about women.

Lord Heseltine made the claim that UKIP was racist on the Daily Politics.

'Mainstream'

Lord Heseltine, appearing on Daily Politics on Wednesday, compared UKIP's appeal with that of one-time Conservative minister Enoch Powell and his 1968 anti-immigration "rivers of blood" speech and with the former French National Front leader Jean-Marie le Pen.

He warned against an electoral pact between UKIP and the Conservatives, saying: "Beware of what happens to your pivotal vote in the centre ground.

"You always have these right-wing, racist operations pandering to the lowest common denominator in politics. That is what happens."

Asked if this meant he was calling UKIP racist, he replied: "Of course it is racist. Of course, who doubts that? The language, the rhetoric, the membership - who doubts it?"

However, Mr Bashir, a businessman, told the show: "I'm incensed that you've given this has-been politician the chance to come and level these accusations."

He added: "We are a mainstream political party. We've got 30,000 members. We got over one million votes in the last election in May. We are a serious player and you cannot treat us like this."

Mr Bashir also said: "Every time it's 'racism', 'racism', 'racism'. We are trying to have a serious debate about immigration... Michael Heseltine said yesterday that everyone was a racist. Here I am. Here's my ethnicity."

'Stifling debate'

He went on: "We've just selected someone to run for Orpington as our potential MP. He's of Indonesian origin and Muslim. Here I am as a potential MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. Where is the racism?

"I'm of Pakistani background. I've worked hard in this country for 53 years. Where is the racism? If this was a racist party, would they select me?"

Asked about Mr Bloom's "bongo bongo land" comments, Mr Bashir said: "The party has distanced itself from those remarks, those two sentences... He's no longer going to run for the party."

He called recent criticism of UKIP "political correctness gone mad", which was "stifling the debate on racism".

"I'm someone of Pakistani background who lives in this country. I've experience racism. Lord Heseltine hasn't experienced these things. He doesn't know anything about racism," Mr Bashir said.

Video can be found via link.

Apparently Mr Bashir challenged Lord Heseltine to a debate and he turned it down, because as usual Heseltine runs away from the argument just as he's always ran away from having a debate over our membership of the European Union. He has a track record of being 100% wrong on the EEC/EU throughout his career - whether it was throwing out Thatcher over Europe or signing up to the ERM in the 1990s, poor old Mick has been wrong wrong wrong.

Have to say, glad I put Amjad high on my UKIP member voting form for the MEP elections next year. Ironic really isn't it? I've been called a racist on this forum before and I belong to a supposed waycist party - yet all the evidence proves otherwise.

The truth is now that the word racism is mainly used by out of touch, upper middle class left-wing white men to close down any form of debate they don't like - so if you believe that immigration should be at least controlled and we should maybe run our own country then you are automatically branded as a racist. If you watch the video too, you'll also see Amjad point out how the Times newspaper the other day had Nigel Farage on it's front cover with a microphone that happened to look like a Hitler moustache - can you imagine them picking out such a picture for Cameron or Miliband? of course not, it's gutter tactics.

Thoughts?