Ukip: We’ll be back – like Black Death

A SENIOR Ukip figure yesterday compared his party to the Black Death plague after it suffered a near wipeout in the local elections.

General secretary Paul Oakley said the party was ‘dormant’ like the bubonic plague as more than 100 councillors were axed.

With 149 of the 150 councils declared, the party had won just three seats – two in Derby – and lost 123.

Their biggest loss was in Basildon, where they lost ten of their 15 seats, resulting in the Conservatives taking control of the council.

Former Ukip vice- chairman Suzanne Evans openly discussed the prospect that Ukip might ‘crumble’ altogether, but Mr Oakley insisted it was ‘not all over’. He said Ukip might ‘go dormant’ like the plague before reappearing in the future.

Mr Oakley told BBC Radio: ‘Think of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. It comes along and it causes disruption and then it goes dormant, and that’s exactly what we are going to do.’

Asked if he really wanted to compare his party to a plague that killed millions, Mr Oakley said: ‘Absolutely. What’s wrong with that?’

Mr Oakley’s comment was described by former Ukip chairman Steve Crowther as ‘the political quote of the century... the most perfectly Ukip-y thing I have ever heard’.