Ukip’s Maxine Spencer: ‘I meet so many people who want to vote for us’
Ukip candidate Maxine Spencer. Picture: Polly Hancock. - Credit: Archant
Maxine Spencer expects to see a large increase in support for the UK Independence Party (Ukip) in Holborn and St Pancras at next month’s general election.
In 2010, the 51-year-old polled 587 votes as Ukip’s candidate in the constituency and she is hoping to double that figure on May 7.
“The whole climate has changed,” said Ms Spencer. “In 2010, I found I got a lot of abuse. But that’s so rare now. I meet so many people who say, ‘I’m voting Ukip’.
“I think it’s the economic situation. People are fed up and want change. They want a party who are tackling things head-on and aren’t afraid to say what they think, even if it’s controversial.”
Ms Spencer was born in Hampstead to a black mother from Trinidad, who had moved to the UK in the 1950s, and a white father from Wales.
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She is now a full-time carer for her mother, who suffers from osteoporosis, and lives with her in a one-bedroom Camden Council flat in Highgate Road, Kentish Town. Ms Spencer sleeps on a pull-out bed in the front room.
Recently she acted as a legal representative for her younger brother at an employment tribunal involving Camden Council.
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The judge found in favour of the council which sacked Mr Seymour as a primary school lollipop man for an altercation with a council officer.
Ms Spencer joined Ukip in 2004 while working as an immigration officer for the UK Border Agency, having been a lifelong Conservative.
“I saw people who were genuine economic migrants who were turned away,” she said. “And I saw bogus asylum applications. They would play the legal system.
“They would claim human rights and a lot of it would be funded by the taxpayer. That was something which frustrated me.”
