A while ago, a UKIP MEP told me to “look up the word fascist and then stop doing it” for asking her to clarify comments about immigrants.
What’s said at UKIP Spring Conference usually stays at UKIP Spring Conference, unless what you say is quoted by Ukip’s official Twitter account, in which case people can call you out on it, and you can dig yourself a considerable hole.
Which is what happened to UKIP MEP Jane Collins – y’know, the one who lost a defamation case brought by some Labour MPs and who has to pay £162,000 in damages – when she stood on stage and said, “There are hundreds of illegal immigrants arriving each week. And when we do catch them we let them go!”
Let’s take a moment to unpack that. Hundreds of illegal immigrants are arriving each week.
Hundreds EACH WEEK?
OK, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt here. Now get this: our border staff are finding them and – rather than detaining and then deporting them – are waving them cheerily through customs, for reasons unknown.
As a constituent of the Ukip MEP for Yorkshire and Humberside, I wanted to be absolutely clear about this. I asked her for her source.
https://twitter.com/hrtbps/status/832863920654282753
She explained that she’d quoted a Sussex Police report, so I in turn asked them for clarification.
https://twitter.com/hrtbps/status/832884447267680257
Can you see where this is going yet? Of course, no such report could initially be found online.
can you point the statement out in their press archive, please? Struggling to find it https://t.co/J5R7kCIIQr @hrtbps
— David (@davidclewis) February 18, 2017
To cut a long story short, my representative at the European Parliament told me to “just fucking google it” and blocked me, but not before suggesting I “look up the word fascist and then stop doing it.”
Man, I love the political discourse.
https://twitter.com/hrtbps/status/832891922440187904
It wasn’t a morning to completely write off for Jane Collins MEP, however. She did trend on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/TrendsUK/status/832913577518432256
Sussex Police later confirmed that no such report about “hundreds of illegal immigrants” existed.
There is no statement about this incident on our website.
— Sussex Police (@sussex_police) February 20, 2017
Jane Collins then claimed the source was in fact a Daily Mail report about five illegal immigrants caught in a boat about seven months ago. She later locked her Twitter account.
