Activist who 'blacked up' was just using an acne treatment... and seven other excuses Ukip has genuinely given

A Ukip activist pictured in black face has been defended by a Scottish Ukip candidate who said he was just using a spot treatment.

Jack Jardine, who is standing for the seat of Mid Scotland and Fife in the upcoming Holyrood elections, said that accusations of racism levelled at Ukip campaigner Jack Neill were "false"...

The pictures that surfaced last week on Neill's Facebook page showing him in black face and a clown wig, some of which appear to have been taken in the bath, were just a "joke", Jardine said.

The posts have been widely condemned across the Scottish political spectrum and Neill's university has launched an inquiry into his behaviour.

Ukip, however, don't seem that fazed: spokesperson Gawain Towler said rather than expel Neill the party would "slap his wrist for being a berk" in the "safe space" of his own bathroom.

Jardine went on to say:

Although I don't condone any kind of 'blacking up' it was evidently not what was going on in Mr Neill's Facebook posts.

Mr Neill suffers from acne frequently and as a result often wears facial masks to treat his skin.

Neill himself told media the costume was for "entertainment purposes" and "nothing to do with the party".

But hey. In the stable of Ukip excuses, that's just par for the course:

"Immigrants were blocking the M4"

Nigel Farage turned up late to a £25-a-head meet-the-leader Ukip event in Port Talbot in 2014, blaming “open-door immigration” for the fact that the M4 is “not as navigable as it used to be”.

"I'm tired, not racist"

After suggesting to LBC radio's James O'Brien that he would be concerned if a group of Romanian immigrants moved in next door to him, Nigel Farage blamed the slip-up on being “completely tired out”.

'He was on sedatives' (part 1)

Kerry Smith, Ukip's candidate for target seat South Basildon and East Thurrock, was forced to resign in 2014 after he made a number of homophobic and racist remarks and joked about shooting poor people.

In response, Ukip's former head of communications Patrick O'Flynn MEP told the BBC in a quite surreal interview that Smith's comments, which included the phrases "disgusting pooftahs" and "chinky bird", were down to the fact he had been taking prescription medication following an injury and was "not really thinking and speaking rationally".

'He was on sedatives' (part 2)

Although he denied having been drunk as well, Scrapbook alleges that Bloom later told them he had "probably had a couple of pints".

"He was on holiday"

Christopher Monckton, Ukip's former head of policy for Scotland and he of "gay men have '20,000 sexual partners' in their 'miserable lives'" fame, called on the far-right British Freedom Party (BFP) to "come back and join Ukip" in 2012.

The short-lived BFP was formed by disgruntled BNP members and was shortly afterwards to get into cahoots with the EDL. A Ukip spokeperson pointed out that members and former members of the BFP were banned from joining the party and Monckton was probably unaware of this because he had been on a tour of the US for most of the last year.

As Liberal Conspiracy pointed out: "One of their key spokesmen doesn’t know about a change in policy, and thinks far-right parties (the BFP always had far-right origins) was fine to reach out to?"

"I was just calling for order"

After a huge outburst in a local radio interview, in which she screamed "will you shut up" at the top of her voice at a Socialist Party member, Ukip's Elizabeth Jones (above, far right) released a statement to explain that: "I had called the interview to order to restore some dignity..."

As the Huffington Post's Chris York puts it: "There is a difference between 'calling an interview to order' and screaming like a banshee."

"My great grandmother was Jewish!"

One to rank with the "some of my best friends are black" mantra, former Ukip candidate Anna-Marie Crampton crafted a string of excuses after an anti-Semitic Facebook post was sent from her account.

The post said the Second World War, in which six million Jewish people died as a result of the Holocaust, was started by "the Zionist Jews" and that it had been financed by "[Jewish] banksters to make the world feel guilty”.

Following calls for her resignation and her suspension by the party, Crampton said she had "clearly been trolled" and told the party's leadership that her account had been hacked. She then added on Twitter that she was not anti-Semitic and that her "great grandmother was Jewish on my mother's side".

More: The 12 ways in which Ukip is the gift that keeps on giving

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