Thurrock UKIP Councillor’s Nazi Past

It’s easy to overlook certain areas of the country that have single UKIP councillors.

Over recent months much of our attention has been focussed on certain areas of the country such as Lincolnshire, where the local UKIP councillors have split, launching a bloody civil war.

So certain solitary UKIP councillors can easily dip below the radar and if they keep their head down can lead a fairly quiet life.

A good example of this would be over in the Essex borough of Thurrock, where UKIP has a lone councillor, Robert Ray.

Ray was elected in 2012 to represent the Aveley and Uplands ward on the Essex council and has kept his head below water, that is until now.

The UKIP councillor’s face seemed familiar to us, as did the name and it didn’t take too long to discover why.

The far right National Front used to have an organiser in the London borough of Newham who was also called Robert Ray and on digging through our files we managed to find an election leaflet from the 70’s for the NF’s Robert Ray with a photograph that looks very similar to the UKIP councillor, albeit from several decades ago.

Could it be a massive coincidence? We didn’t think so and to avoid any confusion we rang Councillor Ray and had a little chat.

He confirmed that he was in the National Front and that he was the Newham organiser for the far right party. He also confirmed that he stood in elections on at least one occasion for the NF.

Ray, who joined UKIP in 2011 claimed he was an NF member for about two years, only leaving after becoming disillusioned with the NF leadership under John Tyndall.

We read him the contents of his election leaflet and he told us that he still stood by everything that was written, claiming that immigrants still established ghetto areas in this country.

When we asked him if he had declared his NF past to UKIP he claimed that he had but he wouldn’t expand any further than that.

Robert Ray told us his fellow Thurrock councillors didn’t know about his far right past and believed that they wouldn’t be interested in what was now history.

We aren’t so sure about that Robert.

Robert Ray:NF Organiser