A councillor has been expelled from the Brexit Party for making racist comments to undercover reporters, it was reported on Monday (9).
Local Brexit Party councillor David Mincher and a regional assistant manager named Gordon Parkin boasted about trying to bury a pig's head under a mosque in Hartlepool and complained about Muslims "outbreeding us" during a Channel 4 undercover investigation.
They were also caught on camera using a series of offensive slurs against Muslims, black people, Pakistanis and Turks.
Mincher complained that Muslims "live like animals" and said he once tried to bury a pig’s head under a mosque
"We tried to put a big pig's head in the concrete," he said. "We got over the fence. You know, when people were doing the groundwork. They had all the bouncers who do all the North East, were doing the security for that mosque. So when we got in they caught us. Just f***ing kicked us out.”
“Because we were going to take a video with a pig’s head under their concrete. Let them finish it. Let it all get built. And then just send the video and say, ‘Look there, there you go, you’ve got a f***ing pig’s head under your mosque there so you’ll have to get it all knocked down and redone again’. Or they just leave it, cos it’s desecrated ground innit?”
Mincher also recounted the story in the company of Rick Moore, who is a candidate in Blackburn.
Moore did not object to the exchange at the time, but later said he was tired and had "switched off" from what Mincher was saying.
“I do not endorse his behaviour, and I can only apologise for not paying attention to what was being said to me at the time so that I could have taken action. I hope that Mr Mincher is dismissed from the party.”
Referring to the pig head story, Mincher later said he had fabricated it "as a stupid act of showing off” to reporters.
Mincher was also caught on camera using racial slurs against Muslims, saying they live like animals, and also used derogatory terms against Asians and Pakistanis.
“Nearly all of Middlesbrough is P***s. Boro’s f***ing rife with all the f***ing Asians now like,” he said.
Parkin, who was said to be the party's assistant manager for the North East region, also complained about Muslims "outbreeding us".
Asked why there were fewer immigrants in the town, he replied: “They won’t have them. They f***ing persecute the bastards.”
Hartlepool general election candidate and Brexit Party chairman, Richard Tice, said the pair have been expelled for their "appalling" remarks.
“Both I and the Brexit Party totally condemn the hideous remarks in question in the strongest possible terms,” he said.
“I would take the gravest exception to any attempt by Channel 4 to suggest that I or the Brexit Party in any way share, condone or was aware of these views and matters.”
He said the reporters may have breached electoral law and accused Channel 4 of being prepared to go to extreme lengths to discredit Brexit and Brexiteers.
A Channel 4 News spokeswoman said: "We stand by our journalism."
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