If anyone were still in any doubt as to who wields the real power among the motley convocation of saloon bar propper-uppers at UKIP, that doubt has been dispelled as what is supposed to be a serious political party descends further into infighting and the slow but certain implosion that follows the removal of its primary purpose.
Squeaky no knighthood finger up the bum time
As I pointed out the other day, the Kippers’ paymaster Arron Banks had told “I am giving Paul Nuttall an ultimatum that either I become chairman and sort out Ukip by bringing in business people and professionals to make the party electable, or I am out of there … The party cannot continue to be run like a jumble sale … If Nuttall doesn't professionalise it and toss out the likes of Douglas Carswell, Suzanne Evans and the rest of the Tory cabal then the party is finished anyway”. Carswell is UKIP’s only MP.
And today, who should have joined the denunciation of Carswell but Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, no longer UKIP Oberscheissenführer, absent from most of the Stoke on Trent Central by-election campaign after taking his bat home, and otherwise devoting his time not to the party he led for so long, but to scoring More And Bigger Self-Publicity Opportunities For Himself Personally Now, and mainly in the USA.
As the Guardian has reported, “Ukip’s only MP, Douglas Carswell, should be thrown out of the party immediately because he is actively trying to damage it, Nigel Farage has said … Farage said … ‘As a party, how can we let a man represent us in the House of Commons who actively and transparently seeks to damage us? I think there is little future for Ukip with him staying inside this party. The time for him to go is now’”.
Carswell - not playing the troughing game
So what’s the problem? “Farage has accused the MP for Clacton, with whom he has a long-running feud, of trying to block attempts to organise a peerage for him”. A peerage? Ah, but: “Former Ukip leader Malcolm Pearson initially attempted to organise a peerage for Farage but then switched to lobby instead for a knighthood when it became apparent he would have had to quit as an MEP in order to take up any seat in the Lords”.
Farage is so dependent on troughing off the EU, the organisation he supposedly despises, that he will not give up his MEP’s salary and, perhaps more importantly, benefits. Carswell, as is well known, does not favour milking the expenses regime quite as blatantly - and shamelessly - as Farage. So it should come as no surprise that he is less than totally enthusiastic about getting Mr Thirsty a knighthood for services to greed.
And when Farage blusters “Since the general election he has brought nothing to the party at all other than constant division, at times I believe deliberately stirred up to cause maximum damage to the party … As a party, how can we let a man represent us in the House of Commons who actively and transparently seeks to damage us? I think there is little future for Ukip with him staying inside this party. The time for him to go is now”, he has only himself to blame. He wanted Carswell in UKIP. Be careful what you wish for.
There’s no clearer evidence that the Kippers have a death wish: they lose yet another attempt to get another MP, then demand that they also lose the one they already have - because the selfish and dishonest gobshite who used to lead the party can’t get a knighthood. UKIP is finished. Carswell might as well return to the Tories.
13 comments:
If Aaron Banks thinks UKIP is being run like a jumble sale, he obviously hasn't been to many jumble sales.
Jumble sale: a damp, dank English village hall full of sharp-elbowed old people in a tug of war about ownership of some old-fashioned and unattractive cast-offs.
Sounds just like a Ukip members' policy forum to me, Ann.
"Carswell might as well return to the Tories."
He never left them.
Probably a plant or an agent provocateur. New Labour's riddled with them too.
Oldest trick in the political book since Walsingham.
re Ann Kelly
Well isn't the point of a Jumble Sale to have nothing left at the end of the day.... seems to be what UKIP are doing, at least in terms of elected members.
And on that point, what happens to UKIP's status as a political party (apparently), if they get rid of Carswll (or he jumps) and all the MEP's loose their jobs as we leave the EU?
And will that leave them even more open to doing Aaron Bank's bidding as he - and possible Desmond - will be their only source of income?
"Farage is so dependent on troughing off the EU, the organisation he supposedly despises"
A bit like The Sun whose journalists despise their readers who they call "plebs", the people who in theory pay their salaries?
Why do so many people these days think that 'lose' is spelt with a double o? 'Loose' (rhymes with moose) is a entirely different word meaning the opposite of tight.
more interesting is that Banks is also critical of the drive to take Labour's ground and he thinks they should be going after the Tories. He seems especially opposed to recent UKIP statements supporting the NHS, which definately puts him in line with Farage. Things will probably come to a head in time for Gorton.....
Can one be awarded a knighthood for services to bigotry, dissembling, racism and xenophobia?
@ Steve
Would it depend on how much you or your backers are willing to pay?
Call me cynical.
OK I call myself cynical. After 2016 and the start to 2017 what else is there to be?
A certain Nicolae Ceaucescu, late of Romania, was given a knighthood from Britian.
He certainly demonstrated bigotry, dissembling, racism and xenophobia.
Add to which brutalism, repression, authoritarianism and genocide.
Twas a happy Christmas Day when he and his appalling wife were executed.
Colin The Bat
@Colin the Bat
Very similar taste in home furnishings to our friend Trump, that Mr and Mrs Ceauescu.
Jimmy Savile got one (Knighthood).
I wonder how long it would take the European Parliament to notice Farage was missing. He can't have been both there and up Trump's backside these last few months.
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