Friday, May 15, 2015
Farage loses his grip
To be honest I really didn't want to write about UKIP for some time but it is unavoidable. We are all being drawn into watching the very public car crash that Nigel Farage's leadership is becoming.
Today's Times reports that the UKIP leader is now falling back on claims that he has “an astonishing level of support in the party” despite a plea from one of the party’s biggest donors for him to resign.
The paper says that Farage had earlier performed a rare climbdown, relinquishing two of his right-hand men in a day of turmoil after his campaign director branded him “snarling, thin-skinned [and] aggressive” in an interview with The Times:
Ukip officials began ringing MEPs and asking them to sign a letter of support for Mr Farage in what some described as the biggest implosion in the party’s 22-year history.
Stuart Wheeler, a spread-betting tycoon who has given £600,000 to Ukip, led calls for Mr Farage to resign. “I would like him to step down, at least for the moment,” Mr Wheeler said. “And if he wants to put himself up in an election, then he has every right to do so, though I personally would prefer somebody else now.”
Hugh Williams, the party’s co-treasurer, warned that Mr Farage’s leadership risked making the party look like a one-man band. “There has to come a time — and I think that time is probably now — when he has to let the party stand on its own two feet,” he said.
Personality-cults rarely work out in the long-run.
Today's Times reports that the UKIP leader is now falling back on claims that he has “an astonishing level of support in the party” despite a plea from one of the party’s biggest donors for him to resign.
The paper says that Farage had earlier performed a rare climbdown, relinquishing two of his right-hand men in a day of turmoil after his campaign director branded him “snarling, thin-skinned [and] aggressive” in an interview with The Times:
Ukip officials began ringing MEPs and asking them to sign a letter of support for Mr Farage in what some described as the biggest implosion in the party’s 22-year history.
Stuart Wheeler, a spread-betting tycoon who has given £600,000 to Ukip, led calls for Mr Farage to resign. “I would like him to step down, at least for the moment,” Mr Wheeler said. “And if he wants to put himself up in an election, then he has every right to do so, though I personally would prefer somebody else now.”
Hugh Williams, the party’s co-treasurer, warned that Mr Farage’s leadership risked making the party look like a one-man band. “There has to come a time — and I think that time is probably now — when he has to let the party stand on its own two feet,” he said.
Personality-cults rarely work out in the long-run.
