| Abhijit Pandya | |
|---|---|
| Head of Research for the UK Independence Party | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 19 January 1980 Harrow, London, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party | UK Independence Party |
| Alma mater | University of Leicester London School of Economics (LLM) |
| Occupation | political activist |
| Website | http://www.ukipleicester.com/ |
Abhijit Pandya (born 19 January 1980 in Harrow, England) is a far-right British political activist of Indian descent, international lawyer and blogger for the Daily Mail. Formerly Deputy Chairman of Hackney Conservative Association, he most recently represented the UK Independence Party. He was a candidate for UKIP in the Harrow East constituency at the 2010 general election. Pandya came fourth and took 896 votes in a contest won by Bob Blackman of the Conservative Party. In 2011 Pandya stood as a candidate in the Leicester South By-election, coming fourth with 994 votes, just ahead of the Monster Raving Looney Party. He was the Head of Research for the UK Independence Party having been appointed to that post on 8 November 2010 by the National Executive Council of UKIP, until resigning in July 2011. Pandya rejoined the UK's Conservative Party in early Autumn 2011, when UKIP backed an English Parliament.
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Pandya's father migrated to the United Kingdom as a refugee from Uganda, after President Idi Amin expelled the Asian population of Uganda. He was born in Harrow, and educated at Mill Hill School and read law at the University of Leicester, before taking his LLM with Distinction in International Law at the London School of Economics.[1]
Since 2007, Pandya has worked as a Research Affiliate in International Law in the Department of Law at the LSE, and is a member of Gray's Inn.[2] Pandya's research at the LSE is supervised by Jan Kleinheisterstamp and Andrew Lang,[3] and previously by Sir Christopher Greenwood before he left to become the UK's Judge on the International Court of Justice.
Pandya is chairman of the Birkenhead Society, a libertarian debating society which successfully fought to overturn the UK Government's ban on Geert Wilders from entering Britain, an issue extensively covered in the Dutch media.[4] He has worked as a research associate with Lord Justice Sedley, the Centre for European and Comparative Law at the University of Oxford, the Redress Trust and various diplomatic missions within the UK.[5]
After being appointed Deputy Chairman of Hackney Conservative Association, he wrote Conservatism for the Future, a book exploring the way in which future policy should be shaped around right wing principles.[6] During this period he founded in 2009 Action Against Violence, a blog which campaigned against knife culture in Hackney.[7] His close links with Lord Pearson of Rannoch led him to defect from the Conservative Party and join the UKIP in 2009, and he was a guest speaker at the 2010 Party Conference in Milton Keynes.[8] He was then selected to contest Harrow East at the 2010 General Election. The seat, one of the most marginal in London, had a notional Labour majority of 2647, based on results in 2005 and amended boundary changes.[9] Pandya took 896 votes in a contest won by Bob Blackman of the Conservative Party.
During the 2010 general election, Pandya made headlines for criticising multicultural policy and defending the right of protest of the English Defence League, after which his rival, Labour politician Tony McNulty, described him as 'a BNP man in a suit'.[10] Mr Pandya later defended his views, arguing that 'a strict immigration cap in fact can ensure social cohesion and improve toleration'.[11]
In the 2010 UKIP Leadership Contest he emerged as a prominent supporter of Nigel Farage, and was rewarded by being made Head of Research for the campaign.[12] He later described Farage as 'the Churchill of our times'.[13]
In November 2010 Pandya started a campaign to overturn far-right commentator Michael Savage's ban from entry into Britain imposed by the former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, on the ground of freedom of speech and toleration.
In May 2011, Pandya stood as the UKIP candidate in the Leicester South by-election, 2011.[14] During the campaign he received criticsm from the Leicester Mercury when he wrote in his blog that Islam is "flawed and degenerate".[15][16] He made references to Geert Wilders by stating "Why should Britain, the country that fathered the modern world, put up with this, as Wilder's put it, retarded ideology". He then proposed "forced repatriation" of Muslims on benefits.[17][18] Pandya came fourth in the election ahead of the Monster Raving Looney Party with 994 votes.[19] The campaign received criticism from UKIP members and was described by them as 'an unmitigated disaster'.[20]
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