Steve Crowther has been appointed interim leader until the NEC meets on Monday to decide the process for the impending leadership election. he has promised to write out on Monday night to confirm what those details are. He said:
I am honoured to have been asked by the NEC to stand in as Interim Leader for the next few weeks until our new Party Leader is elected.
I respect Paul’s decision to step down, though I regret that he has not had time to show his full potential. In recent weeks he has started to really resonate with members of the party, and the public at large, with his robust messages on security and integration.
But this was always going to be a difficult election. We just didn’t know that Mrs May was going to make such an almighty hash of it.
We expected that the government would cement its mandate to take forward the Brexit negotiations with more confidence and power. Instead, she has done the precise opposite.
UKIP’s presence on the political battlefield has just got a lot more critical, as those who want to thwart Brexit use this excuse to try and throw it into reverse. Despite the Lib-Dems’ total failure to recover, Nick Clegg losing his seat and his own narrow squeak, Tim Farron is already claiming that Mrs May’s incompetent electioneering somehow overrides the expressed will of the people to leave the EU.
We cannot let this happen. UKIP will now rapidly regroup, choose a new Leader and get back on our horse. We will provide the backbone for the full, proper Brexit that the people voted for last year, and which is the only way to protect this country from the impending economic meltdown in Europe, and get back control of our borders – something which is clearly long overdue.
I will be talking to colleagues over the weekend and meeting with the NEC on Monday, to ensure that the party is ‘strong and stable’ and ready to support the new Leader in the challenging times ahead of us.
At its best UKIP had maybe 35,000 maybe 40,000 members my guess is that there are now no more than 25,000 members. Of the higher figure I estimate that 25,000 joined as a direct result of Nigel Farage as leader through (tv/radio/youtube/social media/district meeting/newspaper articles etc etc).
The number that joined the party due to crowther/flynn/oakden/evans/bickley and gang is 200 tops and I am being generous. Who on earth do they think they are?! Show me the evidence of their excellence!
Time is overdue for The Putney Debates (part two)
Proof, please, and if you want an indedependent audit, then offer to stump up ?
CK I think the number may be even lower, although people on Twitter have said they have joined recently because of Anne Marie announcing she would stand.
I would be happy to put £100 towards an independent audit, if others would – although it’s a bit rich to ask when so much money has been spent recently on Stoke among,other things. The business of the last few days has cemented in my mind,that we really need to know what is going on in OUR, Mr McWhirter, our Party. Heavens above, candidates standing and personally paying lost deposits, our Deputy Leader removed without all NEC members even knowing – surely you can understand that this simply isn’t good enough, Mr McWhirter, as you seem to be spokesman here instead of Mr Crowther answering for himself.
All of Citizenkains questions below need answering.
I would trust Tomaz Slivnik to look into them and bring us answers here on UKIP Daily – perhaps with John Rees-Evans – it needn’t cost a fortune.
If I may add, although credit to Mr McWhirter for coming here to give his explaination about what’s going on, he appears almost impatient with members concerns, instead of attempting to either address them or asking someone who can, via this forum, to do so. We seem to be almost irrelevant.
I hope we will have a rigorous leadership election in a multi stage process. The candidates need to be thoroughly examined and not nodded in because of celebrity. Remember that we’ve declined with this set up. I also think a return by Nigel would be a mistake, even with him we only gathered about 15% support and we need more to make an impact, though, I sympathise if he wants out from his current job of speaking to the nations ill-informed.
Where will the dosh for said rigourous election come from? ?
I hope you will all agree with me that rushing into yet another ill-thought through leadership election without having done any necessary structural reform will only (i) discourage the best candidates from standing, and (ii) end up with yet another hobbled leader.
Please support my calls for an EGM to put the members back in charge of the party. Go to Facebook @VoteGrahamUkip to find out more.
https://www.facebook.com/VoteGrahamUKIP/ Erm, page isn’t available? ?
Making PW interim leader would prevent him standing in the contest, an outcome NO-ONE(?) wants.
I am sure, due to time constraints, that a MAJORITY of NEC members were consulted on Steve Crowther.
Monday’s NEC meeting may change everything, of course…
Surely the only relevant time constraint is the amount of time it takes to speak to each individual NEC member? The day after the election I am sure they were all in the country. It beggars belief that this is not possible, particularly for such a big decision.
Not true – you admit yourself that not all NEC members were contacted.
How many voted and how many candidates were there?
Why couldn’t Peter Whittle hold the fort till the next NEC meeting?
How many members paid up to date does UKIP have today?
Who changed the rules so that there were two Deputy Leaders? When was this ruling made and who voted for it?
Why was the manifesto released from Evans’ office so very late? How many people had a clear input into the manifesto?
When is Bickley going to publish UKIP accounts?
Crowther picked oakden as his replacement did oakden return the favour and organise crowther as the interim leader?
Who was responsible for deciding who could be a candidate in the GE and why were certain key seats not contested – ones where both labour and tory candidates were remainiacs eg Newcastle under Lyme; and Wakefield??
There are many more questions eg why did not JRE get massive support for his use of facebook etc videos of candidates?
I do not expect anyone in authority in UKIP to answer these concerns we have had patrick o’flynn as a fleeting guest with his patronising comments a couple of weeks ago and no doubt he fled back to the melting pots of the metropolis.
The time constraints were “within fourteen days”, i.e. no real time constraint at all. Crowther muscled in on the Interim Leadership with indecent haste. I’m a sure he knew *exactly* why he was moving so fast and that the blitzkrieg was, I have no doubt, planned well in advance. There was no valid reason not to call a proper emergency NEC meeting and do it at a properly convened meeting, or to think the matter through properly. But it wasn’t in Crowther’s interest to do so. To consult only a *majority* of the NEC rather than to properly involve the *whole* NEC was certainly a highly improper thing to do. I wonder if Crowther will now resign as an elected NEC member, or whether he will be the first man in history to be a Leader, an elected NEC member and have his puppet as Party Chairman at the same time. No one, not even Nigel, has ever had that much control over the Party.
The “Emergency” NEC meeting has been called and is Monday.
I’m sorry, Rob – but your answer appears to me puzzling – of course when the Leadership Election process begins a Deputy or Leader wishing to re-apply would step down, even village hall committees are run along.those lines. What you haven’t made clear is why, for an interim period which could be a few days, could be longer, Peter Whittle was removed from the Leadership post which we expected the Deputy to take up, with such indecent haste that, as you say yourself, there was apparently no time to contact ALL NECMembers.
This type of shoddy handling disrespects members, puts the Party Management into disrepute when heavens knows it is already damaged enough, and it doesn’t wash with me, I’m afraid. There is no excuse for it.
Expected, but is not within the rules or constitution. End-of, until the constitution is validly and explicitly changed.
Give Steve a break. He will do a good job. Time to rally round and not in-fight.
Sorry John but the NEC member I asked didn’t know about it, said they would investigate, and haven’t come back. It’s not transparent.
I won’t let go, not because I want to infight, as you put it, but because I want UKIP to be transparent and open to scrutiny, and if we don’t sort it out now, there’s no point in going any further.
Monday’s NEC minutes, which WILL be published once approved, should clarify.
Seems to me that the useless cabal of carpet baggers is still in control. There is no future for UKIP unless all of them are removed.
The membership deserve far better and a new party rather than a disabled phoenix might be the only answer.
Jack, you are absolutely right. I cannot ascertain that all NEC members were consulted about this, in fact, knew about it, is point one.
Point two is that Peter Whittle may have been ‘persuaded’ but members expected that he would, as Deputy Leader, carry on until the actual beginning of a Leadership election was launched, is point two.
Point three is that Peter was also ‘persuaded’ for the good of the Party I recall him saying, to stand down from the last Leadership election, perhaps with the assurance of Deputy Leadership. Then, post election, another Deputy Leader, Suzanne Evans, was appointed, thus diminishing Peter’s role.
The most important point of all is that Nigel would come back, if we elected him, to lead UKIP, but he knows, and has publically stated that all is not well with the way UKIP is currently run, and cannot return while this is so.
If we allow this lot of carpetbaggers to continue, there is no future for UKIP, as you say.
If there was a Leadership election, we have no idea how many members there currently are, until we do, from an independent auditor, we cannot be confident in any result, in my opinion.
To “expect” it to misunderstand the constitutional role of deputy leader.
Suggest your branch moves a motion at conference to get the NEC to clarify.
The party needs to have first of all a very clear idea of its purpose in the short term (the next two years) and whether it wants to have a future beyond that, and if so to achieve what exactly?
One person may be better as the short term leader, focusing on ensuring that Brexit actually happens.
In the longer term the challenges are different, and probably someone different would be more suited.
It is not possible to make a rational decision on choice of leader until the purpose of the party is fully understood.
Unfortunately I am having serious doubts regarding the capability and capacity within the party to tackle the beyond two year horizon.
Do we need to be thinking seriously about starting a fresh party to tackle that? Let UKIP as it is now handle Brexit, and this other party handle the beyond Brexit challenges?
Crowther – if I remember correctly Nigel brought him in as Chairman when he was elected leader, somewhere around 2009/10, the position was said to be in the gift of the leader, so presumably Nigel and Crowther expected to call the shots.
There was also a chap called Matthew Richardson who was the bacCompany kground legal secretary and seemed to call the shots, particularly as to discipline and sorting out perceived trouble makers i.e. those who asked awkward questions, in fact he stamped on them – as opposed to Jonathan, another sort of general secretary dogsbody
I always believed all political parties have a subterranean sort of mojo – men in grey suits who actually run the affairs, hire and fire characters, not just the 1922 committee in the Cons or the NEC in UKIP.
I certainly think UKIP have had an “in” crowd, perhaps centred on Nigel`s membership of the Bruges group and was it YBF a Conservative training organization and think tank, where people particularly Carsewell were involved.
I don`t know if Richardson is still about, I know he resigned when Nigel did so fast after the 2015 election, but then I heard he was back again pretty soon after Nigel was impressed upon by the NEC supposedly to return (they didn`t accept his resignation.
So I believe there is an eminence gris coterie beneath UKIP that despite the NEC actually calls the shots.
You also have to take into account the big money required to finance an effective political party, I don`t believe UKIP currently has anything like enough – most of it went off to Vote LEAVE. or you need a very high membership, which Labour got from Momentum
I believe UKIPs` not only broke in ideas, effective organization, but in cash terms also, but charisma helps as well and to be quite honest I don`t believe, Whittle, Waters or what do you call him Evans have that vital spark.(I saw the videos he produced and some were excellent (pity I only saw them the 6th June
It must be Nigel with a free hand – or we are truly finished. but he must be backed up by a chairman and others with VISION, ideas, get up and go, enterprise
At the end of the day it must be treated as a sales operation USP and proper marketing and that takes money.
We are in danger of being stitched up. While I don’t have a particular liking for our interim leader, I fear that a quick leadership election will elect someone from the current hierarchy. We will be unable to change that leader further down the line without deservedly being ridiculed. While members are clamouring for wholesale changes at the top, I feel that the ‘permanent’ leader should be delayed until we know where we are going. No change – no UKIP I fear. Let the interim leader remain until we decide if there is a future for UKIP.
“UKIP will now rapidly regroup, choose a new Leader and get back on our horse”
Why the rush?
I agree completely, William – this is looking to a cynic like me like an attempt to control a Leadership election – I am really angry – because it looks increasingly like Brexit is going down the pan. Already talking about staying in,the customs union and another referendum on,the deal – and even a chance to rejoin.
We so need Nigel, but I understand his refusal, while the current control cabal are still there – so I really don’t,know what the answer is, as the current land lies.
If UKIP hierarchy refuses to reform, in,the end I think Nigel may be forced to go with Arron for a Political Alliance to rescue Brexit. But there will be another election very soon, and UKIP unreformed and without a vision or a charismatic leader will finally disappear, imo. And no way is Suzanne Evans charismatic.
Interim leaders aren’t chosen from leadership candidates, for good reason, and I expect PW will want to stand for the leadership. In these cumstances, until Monday, I regard an email vote as perfectly acceptable.
Hope this clarifies.
Well, I think that over the weekend Peter should have represented UKIP as Deputy Leader – obviously once the Leadership election is in train, that’s different, but this appears to be jumping the gun. Why?
I’m sure Crowther is aware of procedures but we need continuity and I doubt anyone’s trying to conduct a coup. Haven’t we all had enough drama? Let them get on with it, see what they can put together.
No!! If Peter Whittle has explicitly asked to be released from being Deputy Leader, that’s one,thing, bit if not, this is a coup of a most unseemly sort. We need to know.
Why do you doubt it, SK – there have been enough shinnanigans going on for ages, we have to wonder – and if we don’t sort this out now, we might as well all pack up and go home. There may be a good reason, but this letter doesn’t give it.
SK,
I am beginning to feel like that, just let them get on with it. We are not going anywhere anyway.
If the flynn/bickley/crowther/oakden/evans /duffy/reeve etc cabal continue to fix and control UKIP then by Christmas it is doomed.
In my own way I shall oppose publicly the corruption of UKIP.
They stopped AnneMarieWaters from being a candidate for starters.
They are idiots if they imagine a facebook/twitter/youtube campaign aimed at them wouldn’t do terminal damage.
I truly believe they are idiots – having met most of them I know their vanity knows no bounds and their envy of NF is toxic.
I’m exposing on Twitter – and tweeted Peter Whittle saying where are you why aren’t you Deputy Leader and he tweeted back, I still am. So I told him that we had been told Crowther was interim leader on UD – also said I wanted Deputy to replace Leader that’s what he was, I assumed, there for. So we will see – I don’t think he knew.
People think a new Leader can reorganize NEC, but I don’t trust a Leadership contest run by these people. Sorry, but it’s what I think. We need to be completely above board. We need to know how many members there really are, eligible to vote. Remember last time, we were told half didn’t vote. That doesn’t seem like a Kipper to me. So are membership figures inflated? I want an independent audit.
This is def ultra vires. The NEC cannot have met in the last 6 hours so it cannot have decided democratically to adopt crowther as interim leader. crowther is the sillybilly who had oakden appointed to the chair upon crowther’s reisnation from that office last year.
crowther is part of the duffy reeve flynn evans gang and they have bypassed Peter Whittle. I can only assume they take us all for fools or they are determined to destroy UKIP rather than release the reins of power. I wont ask rhetorically if things can get worse because I am certain they will.
The NEC use electronic voting outside of formal meetings.
I dont bloody care about electronic voting – Peter Whittle was Deputy Leader and was the obvious continuity choice in the aftermath of a General Election. Who made the decision that crowther should be interim leader and who organised the swift ( afew hours) vote for crowther and how many people in the NEC voted? All this stinks! Crowther resigned consummately after the Referendum last year with no warning – this debars him from emergency office in my opinion. All this is the handiwork of archcretin oakden – the fantasist ( to quote a previous employer of our beloved chairman).
Wash your mouth out with soap, please, then have your branch raise a motion at conference to clarify the position of deputy leader in a leadership vacancy.
CK,
Can someone ask Peter why he is not standing in as interim leader, has he not been asked or perhaps he does not want to do it.
He shoukd be given time to decide, without the luxury of a pre-disqualification.
Deputy Leader
7.10 The Party Leader may from time to time appoint a member of the Party “in good standing” to be Deputy Leader. The Deputy Leader shall carry out such duties as the Party Leader shall assign to him. In the event of the incapacity or unavailability of the Party Leader, the Deputy Leader shall not assume the Constitutional powers and duties of the Party Leader unless authorised so to do by the NEC.
7.11 Where a vacancy in the Party Leadership occurs unexpectedly, the NEC shall within fourteen days appoint an Interim Leader to lead the Party until a Leadership election takes place. Such Interim Leader shall have all the powers of the Party Leader under this Constitution as if he had been elected to that post.
Rob, I think your comment promps the following question:
Why do the NEC consider Steve Crowther to be a better choice for interim leader than current deputy leader Peter Whittle?
A perfectly fair answer might be that Peter Whittle has requested greater freedom in order to stand in the upcoming leadership election if he intends to do so.
However, those members who have suspicions of a damaging, out-of-touch cliqueness within the NEC, and indeed elsewhere within the party, might be forgiven for wondering whether it’s because Steve Crowther is on the NEC and Peter Whittle isn’t.
I honestly think Steve C. is doing this as a service to the Party, not as a service to himself.
Given the disaster for Brexit which has occurred, with the Scottish Cons. Leader wanting to keep MUI – Mass Uncontrolled Immigration – and the DUP saying something not dissimilar, plus arch remainers like Soubry and Clark back on their high horses, I just can’t see how May can keep hard Brexit on the road.
Frankly there is, again, a massive majority in Parliament for MUI to continue.
Thus we need a serious debate within UKIP on where we are going and how best to salvage Brexit.
I absolutely agree with those who say there is no reason to rush the Leadership process.
Better to get it right than get it done quickly.
Everyone on Newsnight and other programmes over the last 26 hours has been on about how strange and wonderful has been JC’s appeal to the young.
Ludicrous.
Basically J.C. said ‘ Here is an orchard of Money Trees ~ come and pick your own fruit. Oh and, btw, we’ll be building millions of new houses to end the shortage.
Free University for all and cheapo houses for all. ‘
Because no one expected J.C. to win or the young to turn out he was never properly challenged on the affordability of his bags of Free Money / Houses programme.
And absolutely No One not even UKIP, has pointed out that you can build millions more houses and it still will not be enough to remedy the shortage when the gates of Heathrow and Dover are wide open to anyone who wants to fly or sail in.
We now need the most effective person who can articulate this need to close the gates, and really close them, for at least a Moratorium period of several years, as UKIP’s Leader.
If the new Leader doesn’t even want to do this then it’s all hopeless anyway. Anything else is a total distraction from attempting to save the country from suicide.
( Read Douglas Murray’s book ‘The Strange Death of Europe’ )
Spot on. Brexit is in peril. The Tories have deliberately dithered to allow remainers/remoaners the time and space to have the referendum verdict overturned. If it is overturned then why should we ever again trust these venal politicians? This will herald the time for direct action to drain the swamp once and for all.
Rhys, if it’s all so tickety boo, why does Nigel say he cannot come back while the current people are running UKIP – that’s what I would like to know. We need UKIP desperately, people are saying online they are joining after Anne Marie posted she will run, but as Nigel says, until there’s a clear out the Leader won’t be allowed to lead, so things are not all right currently.
I simply don’t understand, Rob, how the NEC can authorize someone over the Head of the Deputy Leader, when the Deputy Leader can be authorized by them.
Does the constitution say anything about what to do if the party has breached its own rules?
perhaps Stout or Rob knows – but this has to be explained. The NEC need to tell members if they asked Peter Whittle, and if he chose not to, he should give reasons. It seems to me the constitution needs an overhaul if it can be used like this.
If a party officer breaches the party rules, you can appeal to the NEC (or the board of directors, which in practice is little different). If the latter fails to enforce the rules or themselves breach the rules, which certainly does happen (I gave a number of examples in my NEC resignation statement, and the latest manifesto is another example, as it is entirely incompatible with the Party Constitution), your recourse is (a) to sue, (b) to vote the NEC out of office. It is no different from any other limited liability company. However, not appointing Deputy Leader as Interim Leader does not breach any rules. The constitution is in my view daft, but it is what it is.
Crowther? to me he seems to have been at the forefront of what has brought the party to the state it is in today. So nothing is going to change?
Is that at all fair?
From memory, Steve C. resigned after the June vote, at same time as did Nigel, for similar reasons ( exhaustion after long years of service ).
The Leadership shenanigans commenced shortly after his and Nigel’s resignations.
It is the shenanigans of the very highly paid hierarchy , plus the out-of-his-depthness of Paul N. when he eventually became Leader, which have so badly let down the ‘poor bloody infantry’ of the voluntary Party.
Paul N. turned out ( admittedly to my surprise ) to be utterly hopeless but to be fair to him, with hindsight, we can see that he knew all along he would be , hence he did not put himself forward last June.
Crowther resigned as Party Chairman only to immediately stand for the NEC and appoint his puppet as the new Party Chairman, and to now take over as Interim Leader. Couldn’t have been that exhausted, could he? It was merely a Putin-Medvedov maneouver. Smoke and mirrors. With his every, well calculated, move, he tightens his grip and control of the party ever more. He is not only at the forefront of what has brought the party to the state it is in today, he *is* what has brought the party to the state it is in today. If you realize that it is indeed the shenanigans of the paid hierarchy that is the problem (the salariat, as some call it, or the salatariat, as Piers Wauchope likes to call it) then you must also realize that Crowther is the kingpin of that hierarchy.
Well I don’t know what the technicalities are but I think Steve Crowther is capable, a good debater on TV and radio, and has a dry sense of humour which has been lacking from all the ‘Leaders’ post Nigel.
I have high hopes.
I hope he will stress the need for a Complete Moratorium on all New Immigration for say five years in the first instance.
Everything else is deckchairs on the Titanic stuff, par excellence.
Let us give Steve our full support. There may well be another election in the Autumn.
Brexit is on its knees following May’s catastrophic misjudgement and campaign conduct.
Ahem, Rhys, vote Nuttall?! Nigel won’t come back until the stable has been cleaned out – because he can’t see the point, but he would, if it was. According to Raheem, interviewed just now.
Well when Nigel resigned after last June’s vote I thought we all understood that it was simply that he was exhausted having devoted 20 years to obtaining that result, and that he deserved a break, believing Brexit was now safe.
He has mentioned along the way that the NEC were obstructive etc during his time as Leader – but honestly most people thought he did and said whatever he wanted to : no one could see any evidence that he held back on anything because of anything said or done by the NEC.
I would have thought that the logic is as follows: that if Nigel believes there must be constitutional changes small medium or large he just has to put that foursquare in his Manifesto for the Leadership, saying, effectively, I will only accept the Leadership if you understand that I will immediately propose these changes to the Membership, and if not approved I will resign.
We all know he would get a resounding re election.
If Nigel comes back as leader – which I don’t object to, per-se: then the NEC will be refundant, and UKIP will be 5-Star – if that’s what you want, you’re welcome to it, but be clear that that will be the consequence… ?
Yep, Nigel, if you are ever going to come back now is the time. Another month or two of chaos and there will be little left to lead, it may already be too late.
May has just damaged a clean Brexit nearly beyond repair, the troops are deserting, the Remainers are re-grouping, no more time for yet another difficult leadership election. I have better things to do than wait for those at the top to fight amongst themselves for the crumbs of what’s left of the party I have worked so hard for over 5 years.
Nigel won’t come back while Crowther et al are able to knife him as they did previously, according to Raheem, interviewed at 5.50 tonight. Meanwhile, Anne Marie has announced she will stand for leadership.
I’m hopeless at constitutional matters, but what’s the point of a Deputy Leader in UKIP?
On what grounds?
We have a perfectly good Deputy Leader, and he should now be the Acting Leader pending a leadership election. If that’s not what the Constituion says then it’s wrong.
Yet another mistake by people who don’t seem to know what they’re doing?
Exactly, Q. Time all the robbing Barron’s pushed off. Peter Whittle is a star, able to go on MSM and represent us, who the heck ever gave Crowther authority? These people are making UKIP a joke – there’s a reason for a Deputy Leader, that’s why we have one, like everyone else. I’m angry! And sick of these arrogant idiots.
I find myself in the odd circumstance of agreeing with Quercus. If the Deputy Leader does not step into the Leader’s shoes automatically when there is a vacancy, what is the point of having a Deputy Leader. I said as much when Nigel first resigned (before he un-resigned) and Suzanne Evans was mooted as Interim Leader, sidelining the then Deputy Leader Paul Nuttall. Unfortunately, the Party Constitution expressly says that the Deputy Leader does not assume the powers of the Leader when there is a vacancy; the NEC appoints an Interim Leader instead. It is, in fact, the only thing the Party Constitution says about the Deputy Leader. He is given no powers, no constitutional responsibilities, nothing — it is a meaningless title like any other (e.g. Deputy Chairman) except that it is the only meaningless title about which the constitution expressly says that its holder does not deputize for the Leader. It is really quite daft. But I do not agree that Peter Whittle is fit to be Deputy Leader. Unfortunately, like Suzanne Evans, he thinks of himself as destined for even greater heights. Sometimes in life it’s better to be realistic about your own limitations, because if you are operating at your level of ability, you can be successful and happy, whereas if you are promoted beyond your level of ability, you set yourself up to fail and become a hated figure. Both Whittle and Evans have been promoted beyond their levels of ability. The manifesto Evans has just produced and the consequent electoral fiasco it has led to is proof positive in her case, and Whittle’s ability to grasp the bigger picture, and particularly to understand economics, is equally limited. He would be a good culture spokesman, successful at it and liked, but the idea that he has the ability to be a part of the senior leadership team, make policy, set vision and strategy across the board etc., let alone lead a party or a nation is in my view not credible. As for Evans, she is in fact very good at delivering content prepared by others to the camera. Many of the videos she delivered for the PRU were very good. If she kept herself to that, she might be an asset to the party. Unfortunately, she fancies herself as leadership material and capable of writing policy. It should now be clear she’s not.
Tomaz,
Suzanne Evans is not very well at the moment please see my comment on letters to the editor yesterday. I don’t think she will be making a bid for the leadership this time, plus her illness may be the reason the manifesto was late in coming. However, you would think there was more than one person responsible for preparing it would’nt you?
She told me on Friday that she won’t be standing.
The fact remains, Tomaz, that to most people, a Deputy Leader is just that. Except, apparently, in UKIP. Which to my mind, is why we have to put our feet down collectively and say enough is enough – and,whatever needs doing to expedite the more professional running of UKIP needs to be insisted on, or we may as well forget about a Leadership contest – it’s a waste of time and money if the deck chairs are merely shuffled.