UKIP's Peter Whittle: 'I'd love to be London's first gay Mayor'

As Londoners prepare to take to the polls to select Boris Johnson’s successor as London Mayor on May 5, we’re finding out what the five main candidates (Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, Green & UKIP) will be doing for the capital’s LGBT community in the face of closing venues, rising HIV rates and increasing levels of recorded hate crime. We’ll be speaking to a different candidate each day this week – we caught up with the Green Party’s Sian Berry yesterday (April 26), and today it’s the turn of UKIP’s Peter Whittle, who, interestingly, is the only LGBT candidate in the race…

Are you worried about the EU referendum infringing on the Mayoral race, or is that actually a positive thing for you?

I think it can only be good for us. I’m very excited about it actually. If we get people on the Greater London Assembly on 5 May, then when it comes to the referendum campaign after, we will have people in place there – hopefully including myself – to argue the case for BrExit. I think that it will change the campaign in London, in the sense that we’ll be talking a whole lot more about the EU and its effects on London. There will be an undoubted blurring between the two, but I think that’s a good thing.

Last year the Met police reported a rise in the number of homophobic hate crimes being reported. Do you think we’re looking at a real rise in intolerance there, as well as increased levels of people reporting such incidents?

It’s a very difficult one to establish, but I don’t think it can just be down to people reporting, and I think that if there has been a rise, it’s extremely alarming, and very worrying. It’s too easy to say that it’s just more people reporting, because that lets people off the hook a bit. The fact is, the numbers have gone up, and we take this as seriously as any other party, so I think that we have got to pay great attention to that.

We like to think of London as being an inclusive, multicultural hub, and certainly we welcome a lot of immigrants here. Do you feel the safety of LGBT people here is ever endangered by people who come here from other countries and cultures where homosexuality is not tolerated?

Well it’s a difficult one. Obviously, we have large numbers of people who are not happy – they’re not sympathetic to LGBT people or issues – but that’s not to say in any shape or form that they are the people doing the hate crimes. You can’t make that connection. I think what was quite interesting was a poll which was done last year where people were asked if they thought homosexuality was morally wrong, and 29% of people in London said it was – that was double what it was in the rest of the country. It seems from those figures that there is a greater level of intolerance in London, however it’s very difficult to draw conclusions from that. I think we should not be complacent as Londoners, and we shouldn’t automatically assume that everything is great, because obviously it is not necessarily the case.

ukip3

Last summer, we saw the LGBT wing of UKIP banned from participating in London Pride. Did you feel that was unfair?

I think it was terribly unfair – you won’t be surprised to hear! I actually went on the march, and the reaction of most people was, ‘I’m not a UKIP supporter, but you should have been allowed to march.’ I think it was appalling, and I think some people went through all sorts of intellectual somersaults in order to not have us there. I think Peter Tatchell was the perfect example of someone having their cake and eating it. On the one hand he didn’t want us there, but on the other hand he said he was uncomfortable with banning us. Does it mean therefore, that there is an approved version of an LGBT activist? Why shouldn’t we be there? We have our own LGBT group. I’m the only gay candidate standing for the Mayoralty in London. Why shouldn’t we? We all believe in LGBT rights. I think it was a bad, unfair decision, but what is more worrying is that is seems Pride is now changing rules to make it even harder for us to go this year.

Obviously that whole issue was being debated because UKIP continues to have a poor reputation when it comes to LGBT rights. Do you hope to change perceptions with your candidacy?

Yes. That perception of UKIP has not really been a fair one anyway. There are a lot of gay people in UKIP. I went through quite a rigorous selection process to get to this position as the Mayoral candidate but also the number one GLA candidate. Some people will simply set their faces against us no matter what, but as I’ve said before we have an LGBT group, and we have many other gay people in the party. I’ve been in UKIP now for three years, and I have never seen homophobia in UKIP. It’s never even arisen. I’m a totally open gay man, always have been in my adult life – and I’ve written about it as a journalist on TV and in print – and here I am as the UKIP Mayoral candidate.

I think some people are going to think the worst about us – fair enough – but I have never come across it myself in the party. It’s a pretty libertarian party, which doesn’t tend to sit particularly well with traditional homophobia or anything. If I do change people’s minds along the way, that’s great as well. At some hustings so far when I’ve discussed being gay, some people have been slightly surprised, but in a way that’s their problem, not mine.

The biggest issue still affecting gay men in London is the prevalence of HIV on the scene (one in eight gay men in London are HIV positive) which has also become interlinked with a very serious drug problem. What would you do about that, in terms of funding to services and education?

I’m 55, so I grew up during the 1980s. I first knew about HIV and AIDS when it first came up in America, because of my boyfriend at the time, whose family would send reports over from American newspapers. Therefore, throughout the 80s, I lost quite a few friends. All I would say is that possibly now, some people have become a little bit more complacent. Younger gay men, I think still feel this is something that attaches to the older generation, and therefore it is all down to education in the end.

People have really got to know how to maintain their sexual health. There’s got to be much more awareness – leaflets in bars, things like that – to tell people how they can maintain good sexual health. Also, in the 1980s it was a death sentence, whereas I think some people now think it’s just like anything else that can be treated, but people have to be told it’s not just as simple as that. People have to think about taking drugs for the rest of their life because of it. So I would like to see far more information available, especially to younger people.

peter new

You’re UKIP’s culture spokesman. Do you feel London’s gay heritage is threatened by the closure of certain bars and clubs, such as we’ve seen in the past year or so?

I do regret that the gay scene in London is contracting quite significantly. The number of places for gay men to go seems to be shrinking, and that is something I have written about in one of my columns. There should be places for gay men to go to, it shouldn’t all be about the internet. I did a hustings at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern a few weeks ago, and of course that’s been saved, but what’s happening generally – and it’s affecting all pubs – is people buy these places up, and they either want to knock things down or convert them into these ubiquitous luxury flats which no one can afford. The RVT has been saved from that, but The Yard in Soho is still battling. This would be a terrible loss, and I don’t just mean from an historical point of view, but from an ongoing social life point of view. A city is not just about economics. It should be about the quality of life for people there. So I absolutely want to preserve what we can.

It’s funny because in the past, people who wanted to preserve things were seen as fuddy-duddies, but actually now, many important parts of our lives are under threat. One of our policies in UKIP is that when it comes to new, big developments, there should be a binding referendum in that local borough, giving the final say on whether people there want it or not. At the moment, the Mayor can override local authorities, and he can give permissions, but I would love to see a position where that power is returned to local people.

Are these issues you would be vocal about, as a gay Mayor?

Oh god of course, absolutely. We haven’t had a gay Mayor yet – we’ve only had two [in total] – but when I did a hustings recently with the London Chamber of Commerce, I said I’d love to be London’s first gay Mayor. But I would absolutely talk about these issues, as much as any others. The Mayor has quite distinct and limited powers in certain areas, but he does have to promote a healthy environment for Londoners, by making things known, and speaking up on these kinds of issues.

London’s Mayoral election takes place on May 5. For more information on Peter’s campaign, visit www.peterwhittle.london.

UKIP’s Peter Whittle: ‘I’d love to be London’s first gay Mayor’

In This Article: