UKIP intends to contest most of the wards in May’s Harrow Council elections.
About 25 people attended a public meeting on Thursday last week chaired by Harrow UKIP chairman Jeremy Zeid and featuring the party’s councillor for Hatch End ward, Stanley Sheinwald, and the UKIP MEP for London, Gerard Batten.
The party’s local branch used the event, in the 1st Hatch End Scout Group headquarters, as an opportunity to lay out what it can offer the borough.
Questions were taken from the public on a range of topics including HS2, immigration, Syria and the way in which the council’s executive should operate.
Mr Zeid, like Mr Sheinwald a former Conservative, said: “We are not racists. It has never been about race.
“It is simply that there has been a big influx over the last 10 years and it is something we need to look at.”
The chairman said he disagrees with colleague Mr Sheinwald, who recently announced that trimming Harrow Council’s elected representatives by a third would be a constructive cost-cutting measure that should be seriously considered.
Mr Zeid said: “I believe we need competent councillors to scrutinise what officers are doing, but that is the great thing about UKIP.
“We can disagree with each other. There is an internal debate and people recognise that.
“We will be fielding candidates in most of the wards, and we hope to do very well.”
