Revealed: Ukip boss who posed on dating site as a pilot

THE chairman of Ukip masqueraded as an airline pilot on a dating website on which he also posed with an Aston Martin that he pretended was his own, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Calling himself ‘LoneFlyer’, Paul Oakden listed his occupation as ‘pilot’ on MingleVille and posted a picture of himself standing next to the £150,000 sports car that belonged to his then-boss, Tory MP Andrew Bridgen.

He also boasted of how ‘flying myself up to the heavens’ made him ‘happy’ and uploaded a bare-chested photo of himself.

The disclosures are particularly embarrassing for a party whose former leader Nigel Farage vowed to rid of the fantasists who had dogged it in the past.

In 2014, Mr Farage talked of the danger to the party of ‘Walter Mittys seeking a role in politics’. In 2008, Mr Oakden became parliamentary agent for Mr Bridgen. But instead of working, he was spending most of his time on MingleVille and was fired.

On his profile, now deleted, Oakden, 36, was asked what makes him angry. He replied: ‘My own limitations.’ And of what makes him jealous he wrote: ‘I don’t deal in jealousy.’

Ukip is mired in vicious infighting following Mr Farage’s exit as leader last month. Mr Oakden stepped into the interimchairman role last month after the resignation of Steve Crowther.

Last night, a senior Ukip insider said: ‘He is a Walter Mitty, he has to go. This website shows him as a complete charlatan.’

Mr Oakden said: ‘Yes, I was on this social networking site nine years ago. I didn’t do it under my own name as I was doing work for an aspiring politician and as I had been training for my pilot’s licence I put that as my occupation.’