Ex-Ukip Councillor Rozanne Duncan Insists She's Not Racist Despite 'Jaw-Dropping' Comments

Ex-Ukip Councillor Insists She's Not Racist Despite 'Jaw-Dropping' Comments
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A Ukip councillor who made "jaw-dropping" remarks about "negroid features" has insisted she is not racist and did not regret making the comments.

Rozanne Duncan, who was a prominent member of Ukip in the Thanet South seat where Nigel Farage is running for Parliament, was filmed by the BBC saying she disliked "negroid features".

Ukip expelled Duncan in December as soon as the party hierarchy became aware of the remarks, but the comments that led to the decision are revealed in full for the first time in the fly-on-the-wall documentary Meet the Ukippers.

She was filmed telling local Ukip press officer Liz Langton Way: "I have to watch my tongue because I can be very outspoken and it goes against the grain to be careful what I'm saying."

She said there was "absolutely no way I'm a racist" but added: "The only people I do have problems with are negroes. And I don't know why.

"I don't know whether there is something in my psyche or whether it's karma from a previous life or whether something happened to me as a very, very young person and I've drawn a veil over it - because that sometimes happens, doesn't it?

"But I really do have a problem with people with negroid features."

She added: "I used to say to my daughter, by way of some sort of justification, you need to remember that I was born in the late 40s, early 50s when, especially down in Thanet, there weren't any and I wasn't brought up with them. Now that's no justification at all, it doesn't answer the question 'why is she like that with them and not anybody else'."

Ukip leader Nigel Farage said last week: "I haven't seen the film but she is alleged, and she confirmed to us, that she had made a series of racist comments that is at odds with what we stand for."

Responding to her expulsion, Duncan claimed there had been a "hidden agenda" against her and she felt "betrayed".

"I still honestly believe that what I said was never at any time racist or derogatory," she said.

"I used the word 'negroes' as you would do Asians, Chinese, Muslims, Jews. It's a description, it's not an insult - in the same way as you would say 'what do you mean by Jewish? Well, they belong to a community, they have got a certain faith, they have usually got noses that have got a bit of a curve to them, married women - if they are orthodox Jews - wear wigs'. It's description."

She added: "I don't regret saying it. I don't regret anything, that's the truth."

The same documentary also featured the local Ukip chairman Martyn Heale attempting to draw a line under his past membership of the far-right National Front, by saying: "I was never a member of the Gestapo".

Heale hit out at the media attention over his brief membership of the National Front in the past.

He told the programme he was not aware the organisation was "as extreme as they said" and left after a little over a year.

"For Christ's sake, I was never a member of the Gestapo. I was not a member of the Stasi, I never served a term of imprisonment in my life.

"I was a f***ing member of the Conservative Party for 22 years, I was a member of the National Front for one year and two months. Why don't they just let it go?"

:: Meet the Ukippers is on BBC Two at 10pm on Sunday, February 22.