UKIP leader Henry Bolton has been ousted

Henry Bolton is out Photo by Njharris1997 - commons.wikimedia.org

UKIP leader Henry Bolton has been ousted following a party vote at the Birmingham NEC today (February 17)

The sacking was in response to racist messages posted by ex-girlfriend Jo Marney.

The vote was  867 to 500.

Gerard Batten will take over as interim leader.

There will be yet another leadership election within 90 days to find the fifth person to head up the party.

Henry Bolton had only been in post since September 29.

Prior to him Paul Nuttall led the party between November 2016 and June 2017, quitting after UKIP’s spectacular failure at the General Election.

Nigel Farage with Cllr Stuart Piper in Sandwich Photo David Stillman

Diane James lasted fewer than three weeks in September 2016 while Nigel Farage has been the party’s longest serving, and most recognisable leader.

He quit in July 2016 but returned temporarily in October 2016.

Writing prior to the vote Cllr Chris Wells, the leader of TDC – the country’s only UKIP council – said: “Whilst a leadership election is nobody’s first choice, it is, at least, an election with rules and equality of franchise. Whichever way you spin Bolton’s vision of UKIP’s future, the rules and the franchises proposed are profoundly undemocratic.

“Those of us who have given so many years to opposing the undemocratic nature of the EU, will not walk into Bolton’s whimsical worldview. We would rather walk away with our heads held high.”

Mr Bolton had called for the resignation of Cllr Wells following the voting down of Thanet’s Local Plan and the move of 12 UKIP members to Independent status.

Thanet Independent UKIP Group leader Cllr Stuart Piper said the vote had been undemocratic. He said: “The NEC deliberately excluded over 10,000 members from voting by refusing to ballot all members. I am not saying the result would definitely have been different but it would have been democratic.”

2 Comments

  1. I imagine the new leader will be a good deal more supportive of Chris Wells and a lot less tolerant of the Reverend Piper’s band on the run. It’s classic politics. Piper’s followers thought they were going to be able to oust Wells and take over running the council under the banner of UKIP. They failed to ensure they had the votes needed before jumping in two footed and scuppering the local plan. Now, it looks as if Wells will survive and Piper’s playground gang will be unceremoniously booted out of UKIP. The only thing left for them to do is to join the Conservatives; but do the Conservatives want the councillors who weren’t good enough for UKIP?

  2. I don’t understand why Bolton was so upset by having an apparently racist girlfriend. Surely, that is their appeal.The whole Brexit vote was about race and nationality, with a bit of religious bigotry thrown in. Millions of voters still live in the 19th century, when the UK was seen (falsely) as a distinctive country with superior “blood” not to be “tainted” by anybody else coming here. But now we have the revelations of DNA, which indicate that there is nothing special or different about British people. A discovery that millions of Britons just can’t cope with. Without their sense of being special, what do they have?

Comments are closed.