Confessions of Ukip mistress
Model at centre of race storm faked break-up to save party leader lover She says Markle ‘bad seed’ posts just drunk banter Hiding in lover’s flat made her feel ‘like Anne Frank’
IT WAS the sex and racism scandal that led to the end of Henry Bolton’s marriage and his ousting as Ukip leader.
Now Jo Marney, the 26-year-old model at the centre of the affair, has revealed the full inside story of the furore, admitting that they faked a break-up to try to save his political career.
Bizarrely, she says she was once zipped into a suitcase and smuggled into Bolton’s home – and tells how he faced a crunch Ukip disciplinary hearing wearing her underwear beneath his suit.
Mr Bolton, 55, caused uproar when he left his third wife after meeting Ms Marney at a Ukip Christmas lunch.
The former Army lance-corporal was toppled as leader earlier this year after The Mail on Sunday revealed that Ms Marney had sent messages to a friend in which she said that Meghan Markle’s ‘seed’ would ‘taint’ the Royal Family when she married Prince Harry.
Now Ms Marney has written a candid account of being at the centre of the media storm, during which she tries to brazen out the public fury over the texts by insisting that they were just part of a latenight ‘drunken shock contest’. And she controversially likens her experience to that of Jewish schoolgirl Anne Frank, who hid from the Nazis during the Second World War.
Ms Marney – who says the relationship with Mr Bolton remains strong despite their three-decade age gap – even makes a public call for him to propose marriage.
In her article on the right of this page, Ms Marney says that her racist messages were ‘ all part of a “who is most Right- wing” latenight, drunken “shock contest”’. ‘But how could the public know that I’m not a racist?’ she asks. ‘We decided that the best thing to do was for Henry to “split up” with me... I was living in Henry’s apartment in secret. This ridiculous scenario went on for weeks on end.
‘ I felt like Anne Frank during the war,’ she adds.
Ms Marney then claims that – after they were photographer together during a night out – they hatched a plan for her to be smuggled into his home. ‘We met Henry at a park near his apartment and I squeezed myself into a big suitcase he’d brought: he zipped me up and wheeled me into the apartment building. The next day, we travelled separately to London ahead of the NEC vote [on his future as Ukip leader].... We stayed in a hotel and on the morning of the meeting he said he’d forgotten to pack any underwear.
‘ Not a problem. I said he could borrow mine! I wonder how the members of the Ukip NEC may have reacted if they’d have known that the man they unanimously voted against was wearing my leopard-print knickers under his three-piece-suit.’
Mr Bolton has set up a new party, OneNation, which will adopt Ukipstyle policies. His marriage to Tatiana Smurova ended in divorce last month.
Ukip, now led by Gerard Batten, says that its membership has risen by 15 per cent since Theresa May announced her Chequers plan for EU negotiations which Brexiteers regard as a sell out.