Former Plaid Councillor defects to Ukip!

The Ukip Welsh conference have cleverly stage managed news that 

Former Cardiff Plaid Cymru councillor Mohammed Islam and former Newport Tory councillor William Routley  have  defected  to Ukip.

They were unveiled this afternoon as the party's newest members at Ukip's Welsh conference in Margam Park.

Both lost their seats at the last council elections in 2012.

Mr Islam, who represented the Riverside ward for eight years, said:

 "I didn't agree with Plaid going into coalition with Labour at the Assembly in 2007. Now they're talking about backing a Labour government at Westminster

 I am very much against Labour and totally opposed to this. That's why I'm joining Ukip."Asked whether he was interested in standing for the Assembly as a Ukip regional list candidate in 2016, he said: "It's too early to say."

He had stood in the 2010 general Election under the Plaid banner and Plaid for some reason poured Money into the seat   nearly £10,000 by my calculations 

It alas wasn't worth it.

General Election 2010: Cardiff West[5]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Kevin Brennan	16,893	41.2	−3.6
	Conservative	Angela Jones-Evans	12,143	29.6	+7.0
	Liberal Democrat	Rachael Hitchinson	7,186	17.5	+0.5
	Plaid Cymru	Mohammed Sarul Islam	2,868	7.0	−5.9
	UKIP	Michael Hennessey	1,117	2.7	+0.6
	Green	Jake Griffiths	750	1.8	+1.8
Majority			4,750	11.6
Turnout			40,957	65.2	+7.0
	Labour hold		Swing	−5.3

A Plaid Cymru spokeswoman said:'

"The former councillor in question has not been an active member of Plaid Cymru for some years.
"He lost his seat in 2012 and his activity levels dropped when he was not selected to be a candidate in the 2013 Riverside by-election in his former ward."

It is quite  a political journey from a Progressive Social  Democratic Party like Plaid seeking Independence  for Wales to a right wing anti-immigration  party that has called for abolition of the National Assembly in the past.

From Mr Islam comments it seems he was motivated to remove Labour from Cardiff rather than Plaid's policies .

In a country like Wales which has been under Labour's hegemony for nearly a century there a tendency for all parties to seek the "anti labour" vote .

This leads them to seek candidates  who may not agree with the parties aims but who rather like being a councillor and find that they can gains the votes they would not get as a Conservative or get someone else to do the canvassing and pay for the election.

Mr  Islam defection may have a positive affect on Ukip here . A candidate of his ethnic background may make them  think twice over some of it racist rhetoric.

He may have found a Party that marches much of his real views but I wonder where he stands on Ukips policy on immigration and how it portrays this? 

I would oppose Ukip Euro scepticism and its right of centre policy  but I would not loath them as much as I do when some of their campaigning becomes almost indistinguishable  from the BNP.

Mt advice is for him to look around  at his new mates  and if he finds they are not to his liking he probably find he 's not going to find a new ones in the future