Welsh Ukip peace bid fails – as ‘UK leader quits after 18 days’
THE peace process aimed at patching up the feud between Wales’ two most prominent members of Ukip appears to have flopped, it has emerged.
Last week the party’s new leader, Diane James, travelled to Cardiff hoping to end hostilities between Neil Hamilton, who leads the Ukip group at the National Assembly, and Nathan Gill, who is a regional AM for North Wales and an MEP representing the whole of Wales.
(And there was further uncertainty about developments in the party last night after a senior party source said Ms James had in fact resigned after only 18 days as party leader)
Mr Hamilton and Mr Gill have been at loggerheads since the former defeated the latter for leadership of the seven-strong group following May’s Assembly election.
Mr Gill has come under repeated fire from Mr Hamilton for “doublejobbing”, having failed to keep a promise to resign as an MEP if elected as an AM. In August he resigned from the Ukip Assembly group, saying he could not stand the infighting. He now sits as an Independent AM, while paradoxically continuing to be a Ukip MEP.
When Ms James travelled to Cardiff she had individual meetings with each of Ukip’s remaining six AMs.
Asked at the time whether she thought she would be able to resolve the impasse between Mr Gill and the group, she said: “I’m going to give it my best shot. That’s what a new leader should do, and as I said at our party conference, it’s a fresh approach, a fresh face, fresh leadership.
“I’ve made the day available to come down here and meet with all the Welsh AMs.
“I believe Neil and I have had a very informative and very constructive nearly an hour together. It’s the start of a new beginning – that’s what I’m hoping.”
Since then, however, no progress appears to have been made.
Asked by us at his weekly media briefing whether we could expect a photo-opportunity showing him and Mr Gill hugging, Mr Hamilton responded: “Not before the watershed, I think.”
He confirmed he had made a series of specific points to Ms James during their meeting – which he wasn’t prepared to disclose – but that he hadn’t heard back from her since.
“I’m as anxious as she is to be part of one big happy family and we’ll see if it’s possible,” he said.
Mr Gill said he was currently in Strasbourg with Ms James, who is an MEP for South East England, but they had not talked about the dispute between him and Mr Hamilton: “We have much more important things to discuss,” he said. “It’s not been raised with me at all. I haven’t met with Neil since the day after the vote in which he became leader of the Assembly group. Nothing has changed: I am sitting as an Independent AM and as a Ukip MEP, and I think that will be the case for the foreseeable future.”
The MEP said he had no idea how long an investigation by the European Union’s counter-fraud body, Olaf, would take in to allegations that he had misused public money for party purposes.