Ukip candidate Gisella Allen says she would bring back the death penalty by guillotine

A Ukip candidate for Glasgow Council has said she would like to see the death penalty reintroduced and suggested the guillotine might be a better method of execution than hanging.

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be hanging”, Gisela Allen told The Clydebank Post. “You could have the guillotine. I think the public is entitled to protection.”

The candidate, who standing for election in the Garscadden/Scotstounhill ward, added that she wants to see nursery funding withdrawn entirely because women should stay at home and look after young children.

Ms Allen would also like to abolish golf courses, plastic bags, free bus passes, sex education in schools and the LGBT community.

Being gay was part of an individual’s “private life, none of anyone’s business”, according to Ms Allen, while golf courses were in her view “a threat to the safety of people”.

If the candidate was elected in Glasgow on 4 May, she would become the first ever Ukip councillor elected to a Scottish local authority.

The party has one Scottish MEP, David Coburn, who made headlines in 2015 when he compared Scottish government minister Humza Yousaf to the terrorist Abu Hamza. He later apologised, calling it a “joke”.

Ms Allen was keen to stress that these were personal views, not the views of the party.

However, there is a significant amount of support within Ukip for bringing back capital punishment in some form.

Paul Nuttall, the leader of the party, who recently failed to get elected in the Stoke-on-Trent Central by election, has said he would hold a national referendum on re-introducing the death penalty.

Gawain Fowler, Ukip’s head of press, said: “Having been able to read Mrs Allen’s personal manifesto, the people of Garscadden will be able to make their democratic decision as to whether they wish to be represented by her.

“One of the many fine things about Ukip is that its local councillors are not whipped. It is possible that we might make an exception in this case.”