Ukip targeting four town hall gains in outer London to build ‘bridgehead’

 
Election battle: Nigel Farage’s party hopes to win council seats in London (Picture: Jeremy Selwyn)
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

UKIP is to target four town halls in a bid to build “bridgeheads” to gain political power in London.

Nigel Farage’s party has its sights set on winning seats in the councils of Havering, Barking & Dagenham, Hillingdon and Bromley in the upcoming May local elections.

A second wave will target town halls which include Bexley, Enfield and Croydon.

“We are hopeful that next week will see our first large-scale electoral breakthroughs in London local government,” said Ukip director of communications Patrick O’Flynn.

He added that support was strongest in “a swathe of outer boroughs.”

Ukip won its first local government seat in London last year, when Lawrence Webb was elected in the Gooshays ward for Havering Council.

Former London mayoral candidate Mr Webb, 47, clinched 839 votes and 39 per cent of the turnout in a by-election in March, during which he warned that the ward risked becoming an “overspill” area from London and other parts of the EU.

With defections from other parties, Ukip has seven councillors in Havering and is contesting 30 wards with Ukip Local Residents candidates on May 22.

In Barking and Dagenham, Ukip has four Ukip councillors and 21 candidates for the town hall polls.

Ukip has one councillor in Bromley and is putting up 35 candidates, and contesting 24 seats in Hillingdon.

But Ukip is still being rocked by a string of controversies and rows, the latest of which saw a prominent British Asian Ukip member quitting the party and branding it racist.

Sanya-Jeet Thandi, a youth wing member who was previously put up to defend the party in television interviews, said its current direction was “terrifying”.

She denounced a recent party poster by saying: “Ukip has descended into a form of racist populism that I cannot bring myself to vote for.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT