Heale accused of rewriting history over NF claims
SENIOR Ukip official Martyn Heale was accused yesterday of “rewriting history” after claiming that the National Front (NF) was not a far-right organisation.
Mr Heale, party leader Nigel Farage’s campaign manager in the Kent constituency of South Thanet, had previously said that his membership of the NF in the late 1970s was “a bad decision” that he “sincerely” regretted.
But in an about-turn, Mr Heale has now leapt to the defence of the organisation.
In today’s issue of the London Review of Books, Mr Heale is quoted as saying: “There’s been an attempt by many people to associate the National Front with the far right. But that’s not fair, that’s not true.
“It was a bit of a social club,” he told the journal. “Initially the National Front was just a group of retired people and soldiers.”
Mr Heale was a branch organiser for the National Front in Hammersmith, west London.
He held his position at a time when the racist NF was blamed for encouraging a huge escalation in far-right violence in the city.
His neonazi links were first exposed last year when he ran successfully for a seat on Kent County Council.
Hope Not Hate organiser Simon Creasy told the Morning Star: “Maybe he’s trying to rewrite history and whitewash over his far-right past.
“Anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows that the National Front was a far-right organisation and still is.
“For him to try to deflect from questions about his history in this way is just laughable. It was always a far-right party.”
Mr Heale’s claims were published as the anti-immigrant party launched a shocking defence of one of its MEPs after she tweeted a link to an anti-semitic website.
Last week Jane Collins tweeted a link to an article drawing links between Labour leader Harriet Harman and the Paedophile Information Exchange, which incorrectly referred to Ms Harman as a “Jewess.”
But a Ukip spokesman told Jewish News yesterday that the term was “(no) more insulting than saying that Ms Collins is a Yorkshirewoman, it is merely descriptive not pejorative.”
Last year Mr Farage said he would not join an alliance with the French far-right Front National, led by Marine Le Pen, because of the “prejudice and anti-semitism” in the party.
Mr Heale’s comments are quoted in a 8,000-word polemic in the London Review of Books by author and journalist James Meek.
“In view of Ukip’s insistence that it isn’t a racist party, I thought Heale might be defensive, or embarrassed, about being a member of the NF in 1978,” Mr Meek writes. “To my surprise, he came to its defence.”
A Ukip spokesman said the party disputed the quote and claimed that when Mr Heale joined the NF he felt it was a left-of-centre community-oriented organisation with a national focus.
Party leader Mr Farage was adopted as Ukip candidate in South Thanet this summer.