Ukip’s Clive Morrison: ‘I will blow my whistle to stamp out racists in the party’

With six weeks left until the general election, Tim Lamden speaks to the Ukip candidate hoping to topple Lynne Featherstone in Hornsey and Wood Green on May 7.

Clive Morrison grew up in a rural village in south-eastern Jamaica with no electricity or running water.

When he moved to the UK in 1969, aged 10, he joined his father, who had travelled ahead of him to settle before his son’s arrival.

They lived together in Ferme Park Road, Stroud Green, where Mr Morrison attended nearby St Aidan’s Primary School.

He eventually qualified as an electronics technician and moved to Edmonton, in Enfield, where he served as a Labour councillor for four years having previously been a youth worker.

The 55-year-old cut ties with the Labour Party in 2002 for not supporting him after he was convicted of obstructing a police officer and disorderly conduct. He was later cleared of his convictions on appeal.

At the last general election, the father-of-two stood for the Christian Party in his home constituency of Edmonton, before joining the UK Independence Party (Ukip) in 2013.

As an immigrant himself to the UK more than 40 years ago, Mr Morrison is frustrated by Ukip’s reputation as the anti-immigration party.

“The main parties have failed to recognise how having an open door policy discriminates against those from Commonwealth countries who have served us in the past,” he said.

“It discriminates against non-EU immigrants in favour of EU migrants.”

Describing himself as a “whistleblower”, Mr Morrison insisted Ukip was not a racist party.

“Racists are in every party,” he said. “Whenever they raise their head, I will have to blow my whistle to see they are dealt with as quickly as possible.”