Besieged Ukip leader says: I feel like Diana

UKIP’S beleaguered leader has compared the level of scrutiny he faces to that experienced by Diana, Princess of Wales.

After a wave of revelations about his relationship with Jo Marney, an outspoken 25-year-old model, party members will today decide whether Henry Bolton can continue in the party’s top job at an emergency meeting in Birmingham.

Mr Bolton hit out at the media interest in his personal life after he left his wife, Tatiana Smurova, for Ms Marney. He said: “I understand the scrutiny and public interest, but it’s been going on for six weeks. There’s probably been nothing like that since the Profumo affair or Diana and Dodi.”

Mr Bolton hopes to hold on to his post with the support of three former leaders. Nigel Farage has already come out in support, but Mr Bolton is thought to be trying to win over Paul Nuttall and Diane James.

However, critics within the party are confident he will not enlist enough help to survive. Gerard Batten, a Ukip MEP who once described Islam as a “death cult”, is reportedly being lined up as interim leader.

Mr Batten told The Daily Telegraph that he believes Mr Bolton will lose and claimed the current leader’s plan to reform the party’s ruling executive amounted to an attempt to make Ukip a dictatorship.

The executive last month passed a vote no confidence in Mr Bolton after revelations about his relationship with Ms Marney, who made offensive comments online about Meghan Markle, Prince Harry’s fiancée.

Mr Batten said: “His position, his personal position, the membership will see as untenable and this draft constitution is like a dictatorship with a salary.

“I cannot believe the majority of people are going to vote for Henry Bolton as Ukip dictator.”

The MEP wrote in the wake of the Westminster terror attack that Islam “is a death cult, born and steeped in fourteen hundred years of violence and bloodshed”.