UKIP hopeful quits in occult row: Candidate says he’s been targeted by ‘oddball members who run an angelic healing group’
- Teacher Jake Baynes, 40, was due to stand in next year’s general election
- Mr Baynes, 40, won 1,711 votes at the 2010 General Election at Wells
- 'Forced out' by Glen and Colleen Tucker who work ‘hand in hand with the Angelic Realms…and Galactic Beings’ in Glastonbury, Somerset
Jake Baynes resigned amid claims that the party had been 'infiltrated by the Glastonbury occult'
A UKIP parliamentary candidate has resigned amid claims the party has been infiltrated by ‘occultists’.
Teacher Jake Baynes was due to stand in next year’s general election, but has stood down amid a row over a ‘continuous campaign’ to oust him as the candidate.
And his allies have pointed the finger at two ‘oddball’ party members who run an ‘angelic healing group’ in the Somerset town of Glastonbury.
They say the pair are responsible for stirring up trouble at the local party branch in Wells.
The members in question, Glen and Colleen Tucker, practise ‘alternative healing’ and work, according to their website, ‘hand in hand with the Angelic Realms…and Galactic Beings’.
They have been described as ‘oddballs’ belonging to ‘the Glastonbury occult crowd’ by one of Mr Baynes’s allies.
Graham Livings, who has also resigned from his post as branch manager, said of the Tuckers: ‘They put on these weekend retreats where they guarantee the angels will be present. They are oddballs. The public can be very wary of that sort of thing. UKIP has a prescribed list which states that no one who has been a member of the BNP or the English Defence League should be a member.
‘But when they sat down and wrote out the prescribed list, they wouldn't have thought to put occultists down.
‘I'm nervous about the occult and many people I know who’ve seen that these people are involved in UKIP have said, “well, I'm not voting UKIP with them in position”. These people say that they take angelic guidance and defer in all things to St Michael the Archangel – and at the same time we’re experiencing such vitriol and bile from them.’
Mr Baynes, 40, won 1,711 votes in 2010 and may have helped Liberal Democrat Tessa Munt win the Wells seat, which she took with a majority of just 800 over Tory David Heathcoat-Amory.
He was re-selected as UKIP’s Wells candidate in April. But soon afterwards he claims he became the victim of a vendetta by the Tuckers. They say Mr Baynes is simply ‘not up to the job’ and deny having any vendetta.
Nigel Farage, UKIP's leader with Jake Baynes who was due to stand in next year’s general election
In return, his supporters say the Tuckers are just the kind of ‘fruitcakes and loonies’ which have dogged Ukip’s attempts to be seen as a serious party.
Resigning on Tuesday evening, Mr Baynes explained: ‘There has been a continuous campaign by people who, for some reason didn't want me selected, to work their very hardest to oust me.
‘It’s got so bad that I really want to get out of it – I don’t want to get involved in politics again.
‘I've realised politics is a very ugly, dirty business, and I want nothing more to do with it.’
Referring to the owners of the Angelic Guidance and Healing Centre in Glastonbury, a town said to have ‘mystic’ properties, he said: ‘Glastonbury has many different quirky things about it, and that’s what makes it unique I love that.
‘But I don’t think it has a place in politics, especially when you are in conversation with the Archangel. I don’t think I have experienced any of their [the Tucker’s] angelic healing in my career and the campaign they have against me.’
Mr Tucker stood unsuccessfully as a UKIP candidate in the county council elections a couple of years ago, while Mrs Tucker is the UKIP Somerset treasurer.
He said of Mr Livings: ‘He accused us of being part of the occult, which is ridiculous.
‘What we do here has nothing to do with our involvement in UKIP. We’re stalwarts of the community in Glastonbury.’
‘He is confused, if he thinks it is an occult he really doesn't understand what we do. We are spiritual people.’
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