Sexism furore rocks Ukip HQ

GENTLEMEN prefer blondes — but not, it seems, wit hi nu kip’ s Brussels camp.

Disturbing allegations have emerged that one female ukip assistant in the European Parliament — described by friends as a ‘tall, attractive blonde’ — has been the subject of sexist remarks implying she only got her job by flirting with colourful ukip MEP roger Helmer.

The remarks were allegedly made by ukip’s Pr chief for Europe, Hermann Kelly, who has apparently not been behaving like a gentleman, and were directed at Eleonora Beentjes, otherwise known as ‘Irna’.

A source within the European Parliament claims they have heard Kelly remarking on more than one occasion that she only got her job by ‘wiggling her bottom’ at Helmer.

At other times over the past year, the Brussels source alleges that Kelly said certain female colleagues ‘dressed like hookers’, and that another female coworker was very intelligent, but ‘nothing to look at though’.

Kelly, despite being ukip’s most senior communications executive, was rather tongue-tied when I put the allegations to him.

In fact, he hung up and declined to reply to emails on the same subject.

But his track record perhaps speaks volumes. In 2013, the former journalist from Derry, Ireland, hit the headlines for calling a Lib Dem MEP a ‘sad euro-slave t**t’ on Twitter. Kelly was also involved in a bust-up on live TV with the author of an Irish misery memoir, whom Kelly claimed was a fraud.

The latest controversy at ukip’s European operations follows allegations of racist bullying towards the British Asian ukip MEP Joshua Duroch, which I reported before Christmas.

Indeed, when leader Nigel Farage went on air for his weekly phone-in on the Nick Ferrari show on LBC radio yesterday, a listener raised the issue of bullying within ukip, prompting Farage to say that such behaviour would not be tolerated.

I’m sure Kelly will take that message on board.