Ditch your mistress or quit, Ukip tells leader
After racist rants, she jokes about sexual abuse of babies
UKIP leader Henry Bolton was on the brink of resigning last night after it emerged his mistress had joked online about sexual abuse of babies.
He was told to either dump his 25-year-old girlfriend Jo Marney or go.
Mr Bolton, 54, has faced growing calls to step down since the Mail revealed he had left his third wife for the model and Ukip member.
The pressure intensified yesterday when Miss Marney was suspended from the party over a series of racist messages in which she branded black people as ‘ugly’ and warned that Meghan Markle’s genes would ‘taint our royal family’.
Today the Mail can reveal Miss Marney has plumbed even further depths with horrific messages in which she joked with a friend about raping a baby. The Mail has chosen not to print the distressing exchanges. Ukip last night refused to comment on them, but a friend of Miss Marney’s claimed they had been taken out of context and had been ‘part of an outrage competition’. He said Miss Marney had posted the remarks as she tried to make a comparison between the abuse of animals and babies.
Earlier yesterday Ukip MEP Bill Etheridge had urged Mr
‘Go now and go quietly’
Bolton to quit ahead of a planned vote of confidence due to be held by Ukip’s national executive committee on Sunday.
He said: ‘Go now. Go quietly and leave us to deal with what’s left.’ In a video posted on Facebook, he added: ‘It appears that we are now seeing Ukip resources, which are at best scant, being used to defend Henry’s private life.’
He said he would step down as Ukip’s shadow sports minister if Mr Bolton – who was elected last September as the party’s fifth leader in 16 months – ‘insists on prolonging this agony’.
Former Ukip leadership candidate Ben Walker also called for Mr Bolton to resign, accusing him of having ‘deeply flawed judgment’.
Yesterday the party was reeling after it emerged that Miss Marney had sent racist messages about black people, including dismissing Miss Markle’s suitability to be Prince Harry’s wife, adding: ‘This is Britain, not Africa.’
Miss Marney apologised for the racist messages yesterday, saying: ‘The opinions I expressed were deliberately exaggerated in order to make a point and have, to an extent, been taken out of context. Yet I fully recognise the offence they have caused.
‘I’m absolutely devastated by the messages that I’ve sent and the distress that I’ve caused anyone by those messages. They were unnecessary, they were reckless, they were overly exaggerated purely for effect. They were never intended to be put in the public domain and I’d like to take this opportunity to offer my sincere and deepest apologies to anyone I’ve hurt and for the distress and embarrassment I’ve caused my family, friends and the party.’ Peter Whittle, leader of Ukip’s delegation in the London Assembly, called for Miss Marney to be ‘expelled altogether’ for the ‘disgraceful remarks’. Party chairman Paul Oakden said he decided to suspend Miss Marney’s membership immediately after he was made aware of the messages, adding: ‘Ukip does not, has not and never will condone racism.’
The racism row comes as Mr Bolton faces an investigation into his private life by senior party officials. He left wife Tatiana, 42, who gave birth to their second daughter in 2016, prior to his relationship with Miss Marney becoming public earlier this month.
The Ukip leader confirmed a ‘change in my relationship status’ in recent weeks, but denied reports it had involved ‘a clandestine affair with a young lady who happens also to be a member of Ukip’.
Mr Oakden said Mr Bolton now finds himself with a ‘difficult’ decision to make and is expected to decide on Sunday what to do to ‘help remedy the situation’.
He told BBC’s Sunday Politics: ‘I think it is very clear that Henry is increasingly in a position where he’s got some difficult decisions to make.’
Mr Oakden said Ukip needs to be ‘behind our leader 100 per cent in taking that battle [for Brexit] forward’, adding: ‘Whether or not the party decides it is willing to give that support to Henry is for the party to decide.’
‘Should be expelled’