Dying UKIP ousts leader
Posted by admin978 on February 17, 2018 · Leave a Comment
Henry Bolton (left) – ousted UKIP leader – with the party’s only successful chief Nigel Farage
[spacer height=”20px”]On Thursday UKIP lost yet another council seat, today the dying party voted to oust its leader Henry Bolton, who has been brought down by multiple scandals. The vote at an emergency UKIP conference this afternoon went 867-500 against Bolton.
UKIP’s real problem is a combination of poor quality officials and a confused identity. To what extent is it a nationalist party? Is it at all racially conscious? Does it even oppose immigration? Is it Thatcherite (even ultra-Thatcherite or US-style libertarian) or does it seek to capture some of the spirit and electoral base of the old Labour Party?
None of these questions will be resolved today by the vote to remove Henry Bolton. In fact Bolton himself may refuse to go quietly, but he is now so discredited that it seems impossible for Nigel Farage and Arron Banks to use him in their longstanding plan to overturn UKIP’s constitution.
Farage and Banks had aimed to reduce the power of UKIP’s National Executive and concentrate power in the leader’s office – what some have unkindly called a BNP-style, führer-principle constitution (though of course without BNP policies)!
David Kurten, likely to be UKIP’s next leader
[spacer height=”20px”]Now the most likely outcome is for UKIP’s rump to select either half-caste London Assembly member David Kurten, or half-Turkish MEP Tim Aker, as the next (perhaps last?) captain of the sinking ship. Meanwhile Farage and Banks will go off to form a new pressure group (probably not a party) in favour of “Hard Brexit”, while Anne-Marie Waters will continue her chaotic attempt to forge a new party out of UKIP dissidents and ex-EDL types.
Many disillusioned UKIP members have already voted with their feet and wallets, rejoining the Conservative Party where they hope to elect Jacob Rees-Mogg as the next Tory leader, succeeding hopeless Prime Minister Theresa May. Yet despite his new status as bookies’ favourite, Rees-Mogg is unlikely to make it as far as the members’ ballot, and will probably strike a deal with Boris Johnson or Michael Gove.
Will all this eventually leave political space for revival of a serious racial nationalist party?
