Reform UK’s “major announcement“ this morning hasn’t been universally well received. In particular, the few activists still clinging on to the remnants of UKIP certainly didn’t hold back. In a statement issued this morning, the party took aim at the “Crusty Wieners” in “Deform UK”. Guido doubts Richard Tice will be losing any sleep…
After publicly bragging that their overtures to Richard Tice have been “completely ignored”, the statement turned to more direct criticism:
“Today’s announcement is a reheated, best of British Sausage & Mash microwave meal; lumpy mash, dried up wieners and a bitter salty aftertaste!… Despite the endless 6-point plans, ego-massaging and lack of answers on policy, we learned nothing new about the floppy-haired, London-centric grifter company that continues to fragment our side of the political fence by design.”
They add “For the UK Independence Party, it’s very much business as usual.” Business as usual doesn’t go very far when you’re polling at 1%…
When UKIP sent the Guy Newsroom a press release claiming Royal Mail will burn £3.1 million a day by switching its delivery fleet to electric vehicles, which they worked out to be some £871 million annually – more than double Royal Mail’s profits – Guido had a few questions. “The sheer economic madness of Royal Mail’s electric van plans“, the release claimed. According to UKIP’s figures, recharging the 50kWh battery of one of their new Mercedes e-Vitos “takes 8 hours and costs 70p/kWh at the Royal Mail business electric rate“. That seemed a bit high – how on Earth did UKIP know how much Royal Mail were paying for their electricity?
Guido asked UKIP how confident they were of the commercially sensitive figures. “Very“, was the email response. Still, Guido remained sceptical, so he called them directly to get to the bottom of it. “How do you know their electricity rates? Did they tell you?”
No. It turns out they didn’t hear it from an “official” source. They got the figure from one postman.
The fun doesn’t stop when Tory Conference wraps up next week. After that, the nation’s attention turns to Skegness, where UKIP will hold its “best party conference yet” on 10th October. While it’s promising a star-studded line-up across the board, Guido couldn’t help noticing one of its top guest speakers set to steal the show: former LibDem MP Lembit Opik. To be fair to Lembit, having already been expelled from the LibDems last year for speaking at a “How to Stop the Lib Dems” meeting, maybe this shouldn’t be a surprise. Apparently joining UKIP is the answer…
Today’s MP register of interests publication has had a fair amount of news squeezed from it. Guido covered Tom Tugendhat registering £124,000 in leadership donations among other candidates’ registrations; and the Mirror’s totted up that MPs have received £82,000 of freebie tickets to sporting and music events, including £6,200-worth of Ed Sheeran tickets. Scrolling through the register this morning, Guido almost got whiplash double taking at one entry submitted by hard-left MP Sam Tarry. A £10,000 donation from the unlikeliest of names…
Has the UKIP leader quietly announced the biggest change of political heart since Christian Wakeford? Fortunately for UKIP, they don’t need to start the search for their twelfth leader in seven years. A UKIP spokesperson confirms Tarry’s coffers have definitely been topped up by a different Neil Hamilton…
Neil Hamilton was last night confirmed as UKIP’s leader – their twelfth formal leader and interim leader since Farage stepped down in 2016. Last year their last leader, Freddie Vaccha, was suspended for as-of-now still unknown reasons, replaced by Neil Hamilton. Over 400 days after Hamilton took over as interim leader, the party’s confirmed him as their new permanent leader. He beat someone called John Poynton by a margin of 57%, on a turnout of just 20.7% among the 3,047 membership…
As Guido recounted after Vaccha’s defenestration in 2020, UKIP’s post-Farage leaders have been a procession of glittering luminaries:
- Diane James: Resigned claiming she did not have the full support of her colleagues and officers
- Farage, interim leadership encore
- Paul Nuttall: Resigned after the party’s miserable 2017 election performance
- Steve Crowther, interim leader
- Henry Bolton: Resigned after leaving his wife for Jo Marney, a model 30 years his junior. Marney was suspended from the party for leaked texts containing racist comments about Meghan Markle and attacking Grenfell Tower Victims. The NEC passed a VONC
- Gerard Batten, interim leader
- Gerard Batten: Resigned after UKIP’s 2019 EU Election wipeout
- Piers Wauchope, interim leader (who?)
- Dick Braine: Suspended from UKIP after being accused of stealing membership data, and after 81 days of constant mockery over his silly name
- Patricia Mountain, interim leader. Remembered for her hilarious 2019 election interview in which she said “other racist parties“, didn’t know where the party was standing, and said UKIP didn’t have any black candidates but “might” have an Indian man
- Freddy Vachha: Suspended by the party after 82 days – no one’s sure why. He claims he is still the leader of UKIP. His CV boasted fluency in four languages (including English and American) and says he’s “never ever” boring despite minimal drinking and only ever having smoked two cigarettes
- Neil Hamilton: interim leader
- Neil Hamilton: leader
Guido’s just heartbroken Dr Peter Gammons didn’t get a look-in…
As Guido flagged a fortnight ago, UKIP has committed to winning the nominative determinism prize of the year by selecting Dr Peter Gammons to fight their 2021 London mayoral campaign. Dr Gammons’s ‘doctorate’ comes from Canon University, Florida, an establishment that is not governed by the US Department of Education and gives out ‘PhD’s after a maximum of 126 hours of work. A website claims Dr Gammons has healed a Nepalese man of lung cancer, restored deaf people’s hearing, and completely healed a wheelchair bound sufferer of multiple sclerosis – all through prayer.
He promises to get London moving again my repurposing disused underground tunnels into walkways, safe cycle lanes and “create the world’s first underground ‘Pod’ transport system.” Twitter should have fun with this…
