With no MEPs for the first time since 1999, just a handful of councillors and only two full time elected officials (both in the Welsh Assembly), Gerard Batten’s remodeled NewKip is on its last legs. That doesn’t stop them launching the third leadership battle currently waging on, after the Lib Dems and the Tories, as former leader Gerard Batten announced his term had come to an end today. Now Guido brings you the runners and riders for the leadership…

• Paul Oakley – General Secretary of the party who made headlines when he compared UKIP to “the Black Death” on the Today Programme. He has since written a book on UKIP called “No One Likes Us. We Don’t Care.” Unsuccessful as both an MEP and MLA candidate, maybe this is an election Oakley could win…
• Gareth Bennet – one of just two remaining full time elected politicians for UKIP, Bennett has already thrown his hat into the race. Bennet was previously suspended from the Welsh Assembly when he superimposed the head of a female Labour colleague onto the body of a scantily clad women for a YouTube video. His big transformational idea is to mandate at least one referendum for every Parliamentary term. Guido couldn’t think of anything worse…
• Neil Hamilton – (yes, he still exists). The other remaining full time elected politician for UKIP, also as a member of the Welsh Assembly and now wannabe edgy YouTuber. With more controversies and scandals than Guido can mention, Hamilton recently finished third in the Newport By-Election with 8.6% of the vote. Could he do better within his own party..?
• Elizabeth Jones – UKIP NEC member and failed MEP candidate, who was recently un-suspended from the party after a group of people she was linked to invaded and rampaged a socialist bookstore. The party concluded she never entered the shop.
• Count Dankula – of unfunny but unjust Nazi-Pug video prosecution fame, Dankula (real name Marcus Meechum) sunk further into the UKIP fold, eventually standing for (and losing) the contest to become one of Scotland’s six MEPs.
• Milo Yiannopoulos– trying to raise his profile and put together a new career after his stateside adventure came tumbling down two years ago. During the European Elections he campaigned for the failing party. Could leading it resuscitate him? Guido suspects not.
• Carl Benjamin – another YouTuber and one of NewKip’s most prominent faces, for all the wrong reasons. His refusal to apologise over an incredibly bad taste ‘joke’ about Jess Phillips and his subsequent electoral performance revealed that he might not be best suited to front-line politics.
• Tommy Robinson – still not actually a member, due to a constitutional ban, but the party executive could change the rules.

Whoever gets it, there’s little chance UKIP will rise much beyond the 1% they currently sit at in the polls. RIPKIP.

Guido knows they were wrong in Australia, but this one feels like a stretch…

Gerard Batten’s alt-right UKIP rump has lost yet more MEPs, with UKIP’s three remaining female MEPs – Margot Parker, Jill Seymour and Jane Collins – all defecting to Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party after Batten defended his candidate Carl Benjamin’s rape comments on Marr yesterday. By Guido’s count Batten’s UKIP now has just four of 24 MEPs elected in 2014 left, the Brexit Party is up to 11…

A taste of things to come for MPs if they vote to extend Brexit – Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party now officially has more MEPs than UKIP. Eight UK MEPs now sit in Farage’s Brexit Party – Tim Aker, Jonathan Bullock, David Coburn, Bill Etheridge, Nathan Gill, Paul Nuttall, Julia Reid and Farage himself, ahead of Gerard Batten’s fringe UKIP rump of seven. Bullock says the Brexit Party will “fully mobilise” to take on the Tories at any subsequent European or General election if the Tories “rat” on their manifesto commitment to leave by 29 March. The votes for both parties will soar if the UK is forced into the humiliation of another European Parliament election…

The EU is already braced for a major surge in support for Eurosceptic parties in May’s elections – the last thing they want is for them to be a Brexit flashpoint as well. MPs who think they can force a Brexit delay simply by passing a few votes in Parliament may be in for a nasty surprise…

The defection of the three Tory MPs to The Independents Group today has seen an outpouring of comments ranging from sadness to… sadness from their former Tory colleagues. Theresa May is “saddened”, David Cameron is “sad”, Claire Perry is “extremely sad”. All get thanks for their “dedicated service”, with the door being left open for them to return if they change their mind…

So presumably it was the same outpouring of thanks, hugs and condolences all round when Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless left for UKIP in 2014? Don’t be silly…

David Cameron branded Reckless’s decision “senseless and counter-productive” and accused Carswell of helping Labour. Carswell was accused of “betrayal”, “petulance” and “political vanity” by Tory MPs while Reckless was even sued by his former local party. All topped off with Claire “Brexit Jihadis” Perry’s ever classy “Don’t let the door hit your fat arse as you leave”…

UKIP Director and NEC Member Katie Fanning has published a bizarre post on her personal Facebook profile, claiming that “a secret court is trying to lock me away like Melanie Shaw.” Shaw is a name often referenced by Tommy Robinson supporters who promote a bonkers conspiracy theory that she has been locked up by the Government for speaking out against child abuse.

While Fanning’s vague post reads like the ramblings of a loon, from what Guido can make out it could well be similar to the situation other alt-right British figures have fallen into in recent years – she probably attempted to report on criminal proceedings whilst reporting restrictions were in place. UKIP moving even further into the mad conspiracy-laden world of Tommy Robinson…