Nigel farage

On Friday, in an inconspicuous metal finishing factory on an industrial estate in Coventry, Nigel Farage officially launched his new Brexit Party, and set out its strategy ahead of the European Parliament elections on 23 May. The message of the day was clear: the people, especially Leave voters, have been let down by the Westminster establishment, and voting for the Brexit party is the best way to show that you are angry, and willing to do something about it. Kitted out in his customary Union Flag socks, Farage hit out at the way the Brexit negotiations had been conducted so far, describing it as a ‘wilful betrayal of the greatest democratic exercise in the history of this nation’.

The UK Independence Party might be about to make a comeback. Ever since Theresa May’s Chequers deal on Brexit, which went down very badly indeed among grassroots Conservatives and Leavers, the opinion polls have been kind to the Purple Army. The week after the Chequers deal went public, one pollster found support for the party had surged by five points to 8 per cent. It might not sound like much, but it is its best showing since March last year. Furthermore, such numbers are more than enough to tilt the balance at the next general election toward Jeremy Corbyn and Labour.

Theresa May has come under some pressure these last few weeks over her plan for Britain's post Brexit trade relationship. Both wings of her party have aggressively pitched their preferred version. Today it's crunch time as the Cabinet head to Chequers to thrash out a position. But has the most convincing argument for the Brexiteer side only just aired? With rumours circling that May is to pitch a soft Brexit, Nigel Farage has threatened a comeback. The former Ukip leader has warned that he will have 'no choice' but to return to frontline politics if Brexit is delayed past March 2019. https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1014591285926166528 Will the threat of a Brexit betrayal party be enough to sway Theresa May against a soft Brexit?

The continuing saga of Henry Bolton’s notional leadership of Ukip continues to amaze and amuse and appal in equal measure. The press loves a freak show and, in the absence of anything better, Ukip is the best circus in town. You might think it odd to give so much attention to a party that won just 2 per cent of the vote in last year’s general election — but this is all about Kipperism, which is bigger than Ukip. Much of the time, it seems as though this is Ukip’s Britain. The rest of us just live in it. It amounts to the most stunning reverse takeover in modern British political history. The party’s death throes recall David Cameron’s original description of Ukip as a collection of ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists, mostly’.

Nigel Farage met Michel Barnier on Monday and is now calling, inexplicably, for a second EU referendum. He wants to rerun the whole thing. Well, I too have just got back from Brussels and no doubt Barnier said the same things to me and my three colleagues as he did to Nigel. That being the case, I think Nigel has lost the plot. I met Barnier on Wednesday along with Digby Jones, John Longworth and John Mills, all experienced and talented businesspeople with a deep understanding of the issues. We had a long discussion with Barnier, put our case for the EU accepting Brexit gracefully and acting with positivity in the up-coming trade negotiations. We all want the same thing: a good deal for both the EU and the UK.

Oh dear. Lord Adonis brought Theresa May's Christmas holiday to an abrupt end yesterday with the news that he is resigning as the government’s infrastructure tsar, citing the Prime Minister’s Brexit direction and the government bail-out the Stagecoach/Virgin East Coast rail franchise. Not one to go quietly, Adonis penned a rather eccentric resignation letter – or several depending which account you believe – claiming Brexit is causing a nervous breakdown across Whitehall that resembles Suez. Government sources are keen to play down Adonis's departure as a case of walking before he was pushed – saying that this is a man who wants to stop Brexit.

Nigel Farage found himself in the news over the weekend after his former aide claimed she was told to keep her 'relationship' with Farage secret at all costs – to help save Brexit. In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Annabelle Fuller alleged that she and Farage had a relationship dating from 2004 until October last year – describing it as grossly inappropriate and damaging to her mental wellbeing. In response to the claims, the former Ukip leader neither confirmed nor denied the story – simply saying that he had 'always tried to help her, recognising that she had ability, and prevented her from being fired on several occasions.' So, given the state of play, Mr S was curious to learn that Fuller is still listed as Farage's go-to woman on his website.

There are plenty of theories about what led to the Brexit vote. Now, Al Gore, has a new one to add to the pile. The former vice president - who has been busy promoting his new film by labelling those who question him ’deniers’ - says the EU referendum result was brought about because of... climate change. Gore suggested that the war in Syria was caused by ‘climate refugees’ flooding into the cities. This, in turn, by Gore’s version of events at least, kickstarted the wider refugee crisis - eventually leading Brits to vote out last June. Here’s what Gore told the New European: ‘Long before the civil war in Syria began from 2006 to 2010 80% of livestock were killed by the drought, 60% of farms were destroyed, 1.

Jeremy Corbyn is 'almost a proper chap', says Nigel Farage, lauding the Labour leader for sacking frontbenchers who voted for a Commons motion seeking to keep Britain in the Single Market. That's a policy that, one suspects, quite a few recent middle-class metropolitan converts to Corbynism would agree with. Perhaps Mr Farage's praise will help them see that JC isn't quite the prophet of pro-European liberalism some of his admirers have somehow managed to imagine him as.  The Farage praise will doubtless appall many Corbynistas, who see him as the antichrist, the nasty, xenophobic antithesis of their cuddly, inclusive and not-at-all anti-Semitic messiah. It shouldn't, though, since Jeremy and Nigel have always had a lot in common.

Ukip is a party dwelling on its past glories rather than its future this afternoon. The party’s leader Paul Nuttall has very few crumbs of comfort from the results so far: Ukip has lost every single one of the seats it had previously held. It has, just moments ago, snatched a single seat from Labour in Lancashire. Yet even the most optimistic Kipper would struggle to put a spin on the performance so far. The line that there are still results to come through is rapidly wearing very thin. Instead, when Nuttall broke his silence earlier he talked of the party’s ‘electoral success over recent years’ and how the party had forced the Tories to ‘embrace’ their cause. He went on to say that Ukip were 'the victims of our own success’.

Paul Nuttall has just confirmed he will be standing in the upcoming election. The Ukip leader promised to be ‘leading the party into battle’ on June 8th. Where he stands, we’ll have to wait and see. Nuttall said that he would announce in the next 48 hours which seat he planned to target. In a statement, Nuttall said: ‘As the leader of the party I will be, obviously, leading the party into battle as I have done many times in the past’ Nuttall might now be saying his decision was obvious, but it hasn’t always looked that way.

It's easy to mock Nigel Farage over his decision to turn down an 'easy win' in Clacton or some other Westminster constituency in preference for the hard graft of the European Parliament and its excruciating regime of expenses and allowances. Easy, but quite likely wrong.  Whether or not he ever sets foot in Parliament, Farage can already claim to have changed British history. His role in the Brexit referendum result is debateable; his role in bringing about that referendum isn't.   Just in case the story needs retelling, Farage did it by forming a connection between two issues: Europe and immigration. Until that linkage was made, Ukip was an ignorable splinter of the Conservative Party.

Mark Reckless infuriated many Tories when he defected to Ukip. Now, he’s defected again - and made few people happy in the process. The Ukip AM has announced that he is joining the Conservative Group in the Welsh Assembly, where he sits as a regional representative. Not for the first time, he is following in the footsteps of Douglas Carswell - this time by leaving Ukip behind. And his reasons for doing so are similar to Carswell’s: Brexit means that it's mission accomplished. In his statement, he says: ‘I am joining the Conservative Group in the Welsh Assembly. I leave Ukip positively, having achieved our joint aim, a successful referendum to leave the EU. For me it is job done now that Article 50 has been triggered.

On 29 March 2019 the Queen should have a state dinner and invite the European Union’s 27 heads of state and its five presidents. The evening’s purpose would be to toast the new alliance between the United Kingdom and the EU: one based on free trade, security cooperation and shared democratic values. This celebration of the new alliance will be especially welcome after two years of negotiations which are bound to be fraught and, at times, ugly. The complexity and the sums of money involved pretty much guarantee this. There is, though, a particular onus on Britain to keep things civil. We have chosen to end this failed relationship, so we should brave the insults and not feel the need to respond to every Juncker jibe.

So poisonous were the relations between Nigel Farage and Douglas Carswell that no-one will have been surprised at the latter’s resignation from Ukip, nor the pleasure it generated among Farage and his supporters. It takes something to cheer the departure of your only MP; along with the funding that goes with it. Yet the irony is that in theory Farage and Carswell ought to have been soulmates in Ukip. Both are naturally social conservatives but economic liberals. In contrast to many Ukip members, neither are attracted by protectionism or anti-globalisation – two sentiments which also unite many of Donald Trump’s supporters. From what we know about the political views of Ukip members, both Farage and Carswell stick out as being a little to the right.

A new week, a new drama for Ukip. Although Nigel Farage last month called for Douglas Carswell to be kicked out of the party for disloyalty over a knighthood, it's Farage's righthand man Arron Banks who has today been left out in the cold.  The Ukip donor says he has been pushed out of the party after his membership lapsed. On trying to rejoin, Banks was told that he had been suspended 'apparently for saying the current leadership couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding'. In recent weeks, the millionaire donor has become increasingly critical of the party leadership -- demanding to be made chairman after Paul Nuttall lost the Stoke by-election.