They once got 4 million votes in a general election but UKIP has seen better days. The Right-wing party once led by Nigel Farage, and now far out on the sidelines of national politics, quietly imploded yesterday.
Deputy leader Rebecca Jane spectacularly resigned by posting on X/Twitter a number of messages from party chair Ben Walker in which he begged her to stand as leader because there is no-one else available.
Neil Hamilton, once a Tory MP, is technically still leader of the party though his position is uncertain. A vacuum is opening up at the top of the party that could be filled by Anne Marie Waters, a radical Right-winger described by the campaign group Hope Not Hate as “one of the UK’s most prominent anti-Muslim campaigners”.
Farage does not lament the decline of his old party. “It was finished the day they became Tommy Robinson supporters,” he told The Londoner.
The party's electoral fortunes have been declining since 2016, following the Brexit referendum, when Farage stood down as leader. It cycled through a number of short-serving leaders and, in late 2018, appointed English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson as an adviser.
At that point Farage resigned his membership. "My heart sinks as I reflect on the idea that they may be seen by some as representative of the cause for which I have campaigned for so much of my adult life," he said.
In the May 2023 local elections, the party lost most all of its remaining council seats.
Hugh are you
They say politics is showbusiness for ugly people and in our experience that’s broadly true. But sometimes worlds collide, like yesterday when Westminster was in a fuss about multiple sightings of ageing heartthrob Hugh Grant on the parliamentary estate. Grant, who got political during the phone hacking scandal, was meeting with Lib-Dem MPs. We also spotted him at the 2022 Labour conference. Is he seeking a party worthy of his endorsement?
Yvette Quipper
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper was holding court at the New Statesman’s new year party last night. Cooper told us she’s rapt with admiration for Idris Elba after his call for an immediate ban on zombie knives.
If Labour get in, she’s feeling confident about taking up the mantle from the “eight Conservative home secretaries” that have preceded her. It’s seven really, but she counts Suella Braverman as two because of her mini-resignation in 2022. “There’s an argument that says round two was even more of a failure than round one,” Cooper quipped. In a recent Commons debate, she described Home Secretary James Cleverly as “wandering naked around this chamber, waving a little treaty as a fig leaf to hide his modesty behind”.
Does she enjoy poking fun at him? “I think there’s just good material there. There’s an awful lot to work with,” she said.
