Ukip EU elections poster boy Andre Lampitt suspended over racist tweets
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Your support makes all the difference.Ukip has been forced to suspend the "poster boy" of its European election broadcast, after it was revealed he had posted a series of vile racist comments on Twitter.
Builder Andre Lampitt was one of principal characters in the slickly produced promotional film which was aired across the BBC and ITV on Tuesday night.
Mr Lampitt was shown walking across a building site describing the difficulty he had a finding work as a result of unrestricted immigration from Europe.
“Since the lads from Eastern Europe are prepared to work for a lot less than anybody else, I’ve found it a real struggle,” he laments. “It’s getting hard to provide for my family.”
But despite appearing to be an immigrant himself from Zimbabwe – or Rhodesia as he prefers to call it – it was Mr Lampitt’s other views which landed in him hot water with the party of which he is a member.
In a series of Tweets going back over more than a year he reveals his thoughts on everything from Muslims, to AIDS, Syria and forced sterilisation.
They do not make pretty reading.
“Get over it, slavery was an act of war,” he wrote on 19 March. “You lost stop being so damn jealous and move forward.”
Then in response to two other Twitter users he wrote: “Muslims are animals their faith is disgusting their prophet is (a) pedophile”. (sic)
Other forthright views included on Ed Miliband (“He is Polish and not British so how'd he know what's good for Britain?”), Africa (“I was born and grew up in Africa please leave Africa for the Africans lets them kill themselves off don’t go there”) and Syria (“When I voted they did not tell me they would spend our tax money on Syrians I'm sorry but this is unfair”)
The tweets were first brought to the attention of the party by The Independent - and they swiftly moved to suspend Mr Lampitt.
A party spokesman said: “We are deeply shocked that Mr Lampitt has expressed such repellent views. His membership has been suspended immediately pending a full disciplinary process.”
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