16 Ukip officials quit after leader refuses to resign over his mistress
UKIP leader Henry Bolton last night vowed to purge the party of his critics – as 16 of his colleagues quit in protest at his refusal to resign.
Mr Bolton insisted he would fight on and pledged to ‘drain the swamp’, despite a unanimous vote of no confidence in his leadership by the party’s national executive.
In farcical scenes, well over half of Ukip’s 25-strong team of frontbench spokesmen have stepped down, including deputy leader Margot Parker and assistant deputy leader Mike Hookem, who warned Mr Bolton that his position was ‘untenable’.
But yesterday outside the hotel in Folkestone, Kent, where he has been living, Mr Bolton, 54, pledged to clear the party of those opposed to his leadership. The former Army officer, who became leader in September, has faced calls to resign after he left his third wife and two young children for model Jo Marney. It later emerged Miss Marney, 25, had sent racist text messages about Meghan Markle.
Mr Bolton said he would not be resigning, meaning his fate will now be decided by a vote of Ukip members at an emergency meeting next month.
He warned that the decision by the national executive committee (NEC) to begin the process of removing him was a distraction from Brexit and English council elections in May.
Mr Bolton said: ‘The NEC… is unfit for purpose and has severely handicapped the party’s progress and political delivery for some years.’
He said the NEC had lost the confidence of the membership and he would be ‘proposing a newly constituted and reformed NEC’, adding: ‘It is now time to put an end to the factional infighting and to remove those who have been a part of that. It is time to “drain the swamp”.’
The same phrase has been used by Donald Trump to denounce the Washington political establishment.
Last night, Mr Bolton received support from Nigel Farage. The former Ukip leader said Mr Bolton had ‘not been very wise’ but his predicament reminded him of Jeremy Corbyn’s in 2016, when he was backed by Labour’s rank and file even after most of his frontbench resigned.
He said 16 Ukip frontbench spokesmen had quit but he backed Mr Bolton taking on the NEC, saying: ‘If Ukip doesn’t reform, it will die.’
Last night, Mr Bolton was interviewed by Mr Farage on his LBC radio show. Asked if he was still with Miss Marney, he said the romantic side of the relationship was over but added: ‘In the future, who knows?’
East Midlands MEP Mrs Parker told BBC radio that Mr Bolton’s personal life ‘took over the job he was elected to do’.
Mr Hookem, who resigned on Friday but made the decision public yesterday, said the situation had become an ‘almost farcical scandal’.
Other resignations included environment spokesman Julia Reid and justice spokesman Peter Jewell. Immigration spokesman and party treasurer John Bickley, who resigned in a live interview with LBC, said Mr Bolton needed to go so he could ‘focus on sorting out his personal life’.
Miss Marney last night defended her former lover, despite being dumped last week after her racist text messages emerged. She wrote on Twitter it was a ‘complete fabrication’ to claim no one supported him’.
Ukip councillor David Meacock said Mr Bolton’s call to ‘drain the swamp’ was ‘disgraceful’. He added: ‘If there is any swamp in Ukip, Mr Bolton is the first plug which needs to be pulled in the draining process.’
‘If Ukip doesn’t reform it will die’