UKIP Candidate 'Bruised and Kicked' by Man in Hove

A UKIP candidate was shoved and kicked after trying to stop a man vandalising her political stall in Brighton and Hove. Linda Reid, who is a UKIP city council candidate, said that the incident happened as she and her team were packing up their stall on George Street on Saturday afternoon when a man attacked them.

She told the Brighton and Hove Argus: “We were packing up near Greggs and I just saw this guy rip into the table and kick it into the air.

“I naturally ran towards him shouting at him to stop. In the struggle, he tried to march off with our boards and barge past me. I was behind him and I think he was trying to put his foot through the board.

“I was bruised, kicked and shoved about in the scuffle. It all happened because I confronted him. At the time I was running with adrenalin but I was really shocked afterwards.

“It all happened very quickly. Quite what the guy’s intentions were I don’t know – he didn’t speak throughout the whole incident.”

The city of Brighton and Hove has in recent years become a centre for radical left-wing politics. In 2010, the seat of Brighton Pavilion became the first in Britain to elect an MP from the Green Party, and the following year the party took control of the city council in local elections.

Ms Reid said that this is not the first time UKIP campaigners have been intimidated in the city. “We might be standing with one of our ethnic or gay candidates and we’ll still be called racists and every obscenity under the sun. Particularly in Brighton, with its hard left-leaning, it’s difficult to overcome the perception.

“It’s always in the more affluent, metropolitan Labour and Green-supporting areas where we get the really unpleasant receptions. People will come out of their houses and start shouting abuse at us. Even as a woman, you really feel it could get physical.

“We get a much better reception in places like Hangleton and Portslade.”

UKIP currently has no seats on Brighton and Hove City Council, although it does have 10 on neighbouring West Sussex County Council and seven in East Sussex.