Godfrey Bloom has warned burglars that should they break into his home in the middle of the night they will receive his sword. The former UKIP MEP was incensed over the arrest of an OAP last week who had, in Bloom’s words, “dispatched” (killed) an intruder. Don’t say you weren’t warned…
Yesterday UKIP announced it won’t go bankrupt – contrary to predictions – after it raised £300,000 in donations to meet the costs of the Jane Collins lawsuit. The party also said a £175,000 legal bill had been met “by other means”. Nope, no idea either…
If upbeat new leader Gerard Batten is to be believed, UKIP’s roller coaster fortunes may once again be taking a turn for the better. The party says it has signed up 1,000 new members since Henry Bolton was ousted. Ambitious Batten wants to stand 740 candidates in May so that the party qualifies for a TV broadcast. Interm leader Batten is now expected to remain in place for at least a year rather than the 90 days mandated by the party’s rulebook. None of this answers the really important question. What’s Henry Bolton up to nowadays?
He’s on a skate fishing trawler off the Kent coast. In his first promo video since launching new one man party ‘One Nation’, Bolton is seen chatting to fishermen about EU regulations. The somewhat surreal video, posted on One Nation’s new YouTube channel (3 followers), includes staged shots of Bolton walking into a fishery, shaking hands and sitting on the trawler as workers throw fish back into the sea. There’s no sign of Jo Marney.
The logo needs some work…
Leader Gerard Batten:
“I am very pleased to announce that my appeal to UKIP members to raise £100k to save the Party from insolvency has met with an incredibly generous response of almost £300k. In addition, the £175k legal bill has been paid by other means. UKIP is now safe.”
Is it worth it?
Fish throwing part 2. Now discussing haddock cooking techniques. pic.twitter.com/Sdb5RVeooa
— Theo Usherwood (@theousherwood) March 21, 2018
It is Guido’s understanding that after Jacob Rees-Mogg announced he would not be throwing any fish yesterday, the whips succeeded in kiboshing plans for other Tory MPs to conduct the dumping. Nigel Farage offered to step in last night, at which point the Tory fishing contingent made clear they would not be on board at the same time as him. So, the vessel stopped down the river from parliament to pick up Nige, and he then flung the fish. At least one person is still willing to stand up for Britain’s fishermen…
Vid via @theousherwood
UKIP interim leader Gerard Batten told local members in Essex last night that the party must raise £100,000 by the end of March or it will go bust:
Extraordinary admission from Gerrard Batten: he says when he came to office he found there’s no money & no plan for local elections. Says the party needs 740 candidates to get party political broadcasts for local elections
— Charlotte Rose (@CharlotteGRose) March 6, 2018
GB tells audience that if they don’t raise £100k by end of March then party will be insolvent & out of business
— Charlotte Rose (@CharlotteGRose) March 6, 2018
Remember UKIP need to find a hefty wedge to pay the costs of the Jane Collins libel trial, as well as hold another leadership election, oh, and fight the locals in May. Batten has sent a begging letter to branches trying to raise the money. Will anyone think it’s worth it?
Former Kipper and Tory Welsh Assembly member Mark Reckless’s official website has transformed into a page of Japanese smut. His site MarkReckless.com, which he still lists as his official site on his Assembly member profile, now links to a purple webpage with text written in Japanese. Translated, it appears to recount various sex acts. For example MarkReckless.com now carries a link to
“Play with big-breasted mother-in-law who does not stop”
His website was previously rather more sober. This snap from the good old days:
At least they kept the purple theme…
UPDATE: Reckless gets in touch: “I demurred when asked for money to buy markreckless.com back previously, before it was made a Muslim dating site, and I suspect the amount they want has risen with its latest incarnation!”
Henry Bolton is back together with Jo Marney, after being voted out as UKIP leader. Here they discuss the controversial comments she made in which she said Meghan Markle’s ‘seed’ would ‘taint the Royal Family’… pic.twitter.com/NKD0QhU8gH
— This Morning (@thismorning) 22 February 2018
Henry Bolton has said it was worth losing his job as UKIP leader over Jo Marney’s racist texts. During a car crash interview on ITV’s This Morning Philip Schofield said of the racist texter:
“You just don’t sound like a very nice person.”
Bolton today announced his resignation from UKIP, just days after he suggested he could stand again for the leadership after he was ousted in vote of the membership. Bye…
Henry Bolton has been ousted as Ukip leader by party members. A vote today endorsed the no confidence decision of the NEC:- There were 1378 ballot papers
- 11 were spoiled
- 867 supported the motion of no confidence (63%)
- 500 members backed Bolton (37%)
Gerard Batten was made interim leader. The party will now have its fourth leadership election since the EU referendum. Bolton became leader just 142 days ago.
Guido caught up with Bolton shortly after he learnt of his fate:
This afternoon’s EGM saw the bitter divisions in the party played out in front of an estimated 2000 Kippers who gathered at the ICC in Birmingham. Bolton accused an “enemy within” of working to undermine him by means of smear campaign. Party Secretary Paul Oakley told the room Bolton threatened legal action earlier this week in an effort to try to stop the EGM taking place. Sources said Bolton later reiterated that threat during the meeting and was booed. A particularly scathing speech from Steve Crowther tore into Bolton’s record as leader and accused him of lying on his CV. Kippers leaving the meeting told Guido that Bolton failed to address the Jo Marney scandal in his speech…
Kippers and hacks decamp to Birmingham tomorrow for the crunch EGM that will determine Henry Bolton’s fate. Senior Kippers say Henry could yet triumph. There has been a move on to line up Gerard Batten as interim leader in anticipation that the membership will back the NEC’s no confidence vote. Guido hears more than 1,500 UKIP members are set to attend. Jo Marney is still suspended so can’t enter the meeting itself. But will she come to Brum with Bolton to provide moral support?
Worth casting your mind back to UKIP’s last extraordinary general meeting, held in January 2000. Nigel Farage’s book Fighting Bull contains a vivid description of its apocalyptic political carnage, recounting how the meeting was close to descending into violence. One party member had a fatal heart attack and was evacuated by paramedics. Nigel wrote:
“It was held at Westminster Central Hall on 22 January 2000. Some 900 members attended… The crowd roared and wept and shook fists and sheaves of papers. Every speaker was shouted down. I have never, before or since, attended a meeting so constantly close to eruption into violence. One member of the audience suffered a fatal heart attack.
“I too was by now close to tears. Everything for which I had fought and worked was being ripped apart by self-seeking factionalism and idiotic pride. The people now walking out, maybe forever, they mattered. The ordinary advocates of decency and freedom who had sacrificed a precious day off to come up here from Suffolk, Devon, Yorkshire they mattered, not the vainglorious morons up there squabbling for position and power.”
What could go wrong…
UKIP has been ordered to pay a share of the £670,000 costs of the Jane Collins libel case after their MEP accused Labour MPs of involvement in the Rotherham abuse scandal:
“The Court therefore makes an order that UKIP should pay the claimants’ costs from 20 March 2015 to 23 June 2015 and their costs of the assessment hearing.”
Only a share of the total cost, but still going to be tricky for the cash-strapped party to pay…
UPDATE: Labour source says UKIP share of legal costs is estimated at £200,000. Potentially fatal for the party if so…
UPDATE II: UKIP lawyers say they think it will be closer to £20,000. Labour still adamant the party owes £200,000.
Senior UKIP figures are proposing to appoint pink-suited Muslim-basher Gerard Batten as their interim leader if Henry Bolton loses the vote at this weekend’s EGM, Guido can reveal. The three UKIP peers, Lords Pearson, Stevens and Willoughby de Broke, have written to the party’s NEC this morning:
“We now write to suggest that, ahead of the EGM on 17th February, you resolve to immediately appoint Gerard Batten MEP as Interim Leader in the event that Henry Bolton loses the vote at the EGM. Further, we suggest that you publicly announce ahead of the EGM that it is your intention to appoint Gerard in the event that Henry Bolton loses, so that UKIP members will know as they vote that you have a plan of action around the party leadership and that there will not be any demoralising vacuum at the top.”
Batten’s support is growing: John Bickley says “most Kippers want Gerard Batten to be interim leader. He’s a safe pair of hands and the party’s Brexit guru. Many of the colleagues I work with and I would support him”. He has also won surely game-changing endorsements from Bill Etheridge and Ben Walker. Batten was previously best known for saying British Muslims must sign a code of conduct, describing Islam as “Mohammedanism” and a “death cult” of which we should have a “rational fear”, and calling for an end to the building of new mosques in the UK until a non-Muslim place of worship is built in Mecca. A supporter once defended him to HuffPo saying: “It’s not like he wants to kill all Muslims”. UKIP leadership jostling seems like bald men fighting over a comb to Guido…
Paul Oakden has announced his resignation as UKIP Party Chairman and said overseeing Saturday’s EGM will be his last act before standing down. Oakden said he voluntarily terminated his contract last month. Here’s his statement:
“Being the Chairman of UKIP is an honour and a privilege. It doesn’t come with champagne lunches, a whopping salary or great esteem. What it does bring are thousands of emails and letters, occasional angry members whom it’s just not possible to pacify. Chairing the board, acting as a diplomat between the NEC and a Leader (or five) and generally being the person whose fate it is to disappoint almost everybody.
“That’s the base line, and it expands from there – still, I’m the lucky one for having had the opportunity to do it. One Of the more unenviable tasks is to chair national EGMs, as the one that is taking place this Saturday in Birmingham. Chairing this EGM, however, will be my last act as UKIP Party Chairman.
“At the end of January, I voluntarily terminated the contract that l have with UKIP, bringing my formal employment with the party to an end. This was entirely of my own volition. Earlier today I wrote to the Party Leader and the NEC to notify them of my decision to stand down once the EGM has concluded.”
Over the weekend Oakden denied being part of a “coup” when he sent out an email signed off “interim leader.” Will the last one out turn off the lights?
A late night email dropped to UKIP members from Chairman Paul Oakden yesterday. It was signed off: “Interim Leader”. Had a bloodless coup taken place overnight?
A few minutes later Oakden followed up with a clarification email:
“To avoid any panic this is not a coup … I remain, for now, the Interim Chairman. There is no Interim Leader.”
“For now”…
Over the weekend Henry Bolton didn’t deny he’d been seen out again with Jo Marney since the last sighting. On LBC this morning he told Nick Ferrari he had been paid around £5,000 since becoming party leader, said it was LinkedIn’s fault he claimed he had a BA degree from Sandhurst. EGM on Saturday…
“Are you still in love with @Jo_Marney?” @AndrewMarr9 asks @_HenryBolton
“There are strong affections there, yes.” #marr pic.twitter.com/jmTKSE4jNX
— The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) February 11, 2018
Asked if the relationship is still live, he replied “yeah”…
A former UKIP leadership candidate who claimed a gay donkey tried to rape his horse is set to launch a new political party… with a donkey for its logo. John Rees-Evans is going his own way and has registered the Democrats and Veterans party with the Electoral Commission; a launch event is set for London’s Union Jack Club this week. Rees-Evans famously said in 2014:
“I’ve got a horse and it was there in the field. And a donkey came up… which was male, and I’m afraid tried to rape my horse.”
The former soldier also owns a fortified survivalist compound in Bulgaria. He quit UKIP in October to form a new party called ‘Affinity’. Will this one also die on its ass?
UKIP spin chief Gawain Towler is stepping down after 13 years at the party. It is no exaggeration to say Gawain is one of the press officers most respected by political journalists over the last decade. Just think what he has had to deal with down the years – from gay floods to Godfrey Bloom to donkey rape and Henry Bolton – the Lobby knew their phone calls would always be answered with honesty and good humour. At many times he single-handedly kept the party together.
Gawain is setting up a reputation management consultancy named CWC, which stands for “Crisis, What Crisis?”, and prospective clients will be making a canny choice. God knows what UKIP are going to do without him – in many ways Gawain leaving really does signal the end of the party. MoG this evening?
The UKIP EGM is in Birmingham on February 17, so the winner will have to collect their prize fast if they want dinner with Henry Bolton. Who should Guido take if he wins?
UKIP’s EGM – the hotly-anticipated event of the year for Her Majesty’s Press Corps – is likely to take place around the 17th of February in Derby, Guido understands. Although the location and date are subject to change, this is the current plan. It would work out favourably for Henry Bolton: Guido is told the majority of his remaining supporters in the membership are based in the midlands and north. Senior Kippers think this could make all the difference for Bolton and are saying there’s a real possibility he could win the vote and survive – providing, as Nigel Farage has repeatedly warned, no further pictures emerge of him with his definitely-not-still-girlfriend Jo Marney in the meantime. Can his opponents bus 400 people up to Derby to vote him out?
It’s complicated. Julia grills UKIP leader Henry Bolton over his Facebook relationship status. Watch below ▼ @JuliaHB1 pic.twitter.com/Mqlum4WJb2
— talkRADIO (@talkRADIO) January 23, 2018
He told the press he’d dumped her, then we caught him going home with her. Now he won’t tell Julia if he’s still going out with her. Henry’s going to have to be straight with Kippers if he has any hope of turning this around. (He doesn’t.)
Today
Energy spokesman Jonathan Bullock
Yesterday
Work and Pensions spokesman David Sprason
London spokesman Peter Whittle
Education spokesman David Kurten
Local government spokesman Tim Aker
Assistant deputy leader Mike Hookem
Trade spokesman William Dartmouth
Deputy leader Margot Parker
5 councillors in Hartlepool
Over the weekend
Immigration spokesman John Bickley
Brexit spokesman Gerard Batten
London controller Peter Harris
Last week
Culture spokesman David Meacock
MEP Jonathan Arnott
Bolton’s former press officer Susie Govett
Disabilities spokesman Star Anderton[…] Read the rest
