The Telegraph reports:
Another blow for Ukip as candidate is suspended following anti-Zionist comments
Ukip has suffered another set-back in the run-up to local elections. As we report, Susan Bowen, from Boscastle in Cornwall, who had been due to stand for Ukip in next month’s county council elections, has been thrown out of the party after it emerged that she was once a member of the BNP.
Now, a week away from polling day, Anna-Marie Crampton, a candidate in the Crowborough ward of East Sussex County Council, has been suspended from the party after making allegedly anti-Zionist comments online, including suggestions that World War Two was a Jewish conspiracy.
An internet user posting under Ms Crampton’s name suggests that the world was “duped” when it elected to establish Israel, and advised people to “read the Protocols of Zion, all you need to know is in there and it’s in their own words”.
Elsewhere, the user elaborated. “The Second World Wide War was engineered by the Zionist Jews and financed by the banksters to make the general public all over the world feel so guilty and outraged by the Holocaust that a treaty would be signed to create the State of Israel as we know it today.”
Then came the final blow: “Only the Zionists could sacrifice their own in the gas chambers… It was thanks to them that six million Jews were murdered in the war.” In a toe-curling addition, the same account also carried pictures of Ms Crampton posing with Nigel Farage.
According to the Argus, the comments appeared on an article entitled “Was Pope Benedict fired by the Knights of Malta?”, on a website called Secrets of The Fed.
Ukip has suspended the candidate, and released a statement saying that it was “appalled”.
A spokesperson said: “Anti-Zionist conspiracy theory is not welcome in Ukip. Indeed, we are confused as to why a party like Ukip would be seen by anyone as a suitable vehicle for someone holding these sorts of views… Rest assured that her views are not held by the party and do not reflect the views of our other excellent candidates.”
Nevertheless, the debacle is not going to help perceptions of Ukip, particularly amongst floating voters, and will lend credence to the Prime Minister’s famous attack on Ukip in which he called them, among other things, “closet racists”.
This will only be aggravated by Ms Crampton’s refusal to go quietly. “I’m not antisemetic [sic],” she tweeted.
Notice how the Telegraph report characterizes Crampton’s appalling, antisemitic comments as “anti-Zionist” (although interestingly enough, the photo accompanying it has the caption “Nigel Farage has suspended a Ukip candidate for making anti-Semitic posts online”). Notice also how the spokesperson for UKIP refers to her “anti-Zionist conspiracy theories.”
It is no wonder Crampton feels comfortable denying any antisemitism, despite her blatantly antisemitic comments.
Update: The Guardian report has an even more ridiculous (yet very Guardianesque) title:
Ukip election candidate suspended over alleged antisemitic comments
It also contains a different denial from Crampton.
Anna-Marie Crampton, a candidate in East Sussex, told the party her account on the site Secrets of The Fed had been hacked
Ahh yes, the tried and tested “hacked” defense, a favorite of antisemites everywhere.
