{"id":6948,"date":"2014-10-20T17:02:43","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T17:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2014\/10\/20\/labour-councillor-joins-ukip\/"},"modified":"2016-01-07T13:58:07","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T13:58:07","slug":"labour-councillor-joins-ukip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2014\/10\/20\/labour-councillor-joins-ukip\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour councillor joins UKIP"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3>A former Labour councillor has decided to join political party UKIP<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"1\" align=\"middle\" width=\"467\" vspace=\"10\" hspace=\"3\" height=\"184\" src=\"http:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/Image\/Gallery\/labour-councillor-UKIP-467x184.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nFormer Labour councillor, 60-year-old Harjinder Singh Sehmi, has decided to join political party UKIP.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nAn immigrant from India now holding British citizenship, Mr.Sehmi stated he wants to support a party that controls UK borders. He said, \u201cI agree with UKIP over border control.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\u201cIf you have a three bedroom house you can\u2019t have five or six guests because it\u2019s too crowded \u2013 it is the same with the country.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\u201cThe Labour Party is only for Labour, the Conservatives are only for rich people but UKIP is for the whole of Britain.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nThe former Labour member believes immigration to the UK from other European countries is more of a concern than immigration from outside Europe, which is much more tightly regulated.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nMr. Sehmi is aware his decision will not sit well with others including those he works alongside as a community volunteer.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nDespite this he is determined not to restrict himself to just being a member, but to put himself forward as a possible candidate for a Coventry City Council ward and for a parliamentary seat.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nMr Sehmi, a dad of four and grandfather, represented the Cheylesmore ward on Coventry City Council before losing his seat to Conservative candidate Roger Bailey. <\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nHe studied for an arts degree at the University of Punjab before moving to the UK. He then married wife Guljinder, who had moved here several years before from the city of Mombasa in Kenyan. He worked at the General Electrical Company and was a shop steward for trade union the T and G. He now lives in Foleshill and plans to start a travel business.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nFormer Conservative Douglas Carswell recently became UKIP\u2019s first MP, winning the Clacton-on-Sea by election. His defection from the Conservative Party had triggered the election.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nNewly elected West Midlands UKIP MEP Jim Carver said, \u201cPeople are attracted by our policies, such as raising tax allowances and taking everybody on the minimum wage out of income tax. Harjinder is one of many. A lot of our activists are coming from old Labour backgrounds.\u201d&#13;\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former Labour councillor has decided to join political party UKIP &#13; Former Labour councillor, 60-year-old Harjinder Singh Sehmi, has decided to join political party UKIP. &#13; An immigrant from India now holding British citizenship, Mr.Sehmi stated he wants to support a party that controls UK borders. He said, \u201cI agree with UKIP over border [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}