Nigel farage

Patrick O’Flynn has apologised for starting last week’s Ukip wars. I understand that O’Flynn met with Farage in Strasbourg this morning — the first time the pair had sat down since his comments in the Times last week. In a slightly bizarre turn of events, the party has released the following statement from O’Flynn: ‘I would like to express to colleagues my sincere regret at going public with my frustrations about the turn of events following polling day. And more than that, I would like to apologise directly to Nigel for the phrase ‘snarling, thin-skinned and aggressive’. This was a fragment of a wider passage about perceptions and is not

What a difference a day makes. Only yesterday it seemed that the Ukip civil war was still rattling on, with Nigel Farage’s former senior advisor Raheem Kassam writing a feisty article for the Telegraph criticising Douglas Carswell, who had in turn criticised Farage. Happily relations between Carswell and Farage seem amiable for now. They were joined by rumoured Ukip leadership hopeful Suzanne Evans for a selfie outside Number 10. https://twitter.com/DouglasCarswell/status/600250080734621698 The trio met with members of the Green party and Plaid Cymru as they called for David Cameron to organise fairer voting system than first past the post. https://twitter.com/LOS_Fisher/status/600249529477242880 Not that this cause stopped Carswell from focussing on Ukip matters at the meet. Is this a photo of the future

Ukip’s internal warfare continues today with interventions from both sides. Suzanne Evans, the party’s deputy chairman, appeared on the Andrew Marr Show this morning to play down the tensions. She told Andrew Marr that the situation has been overegged: ‘I don’t think anyone hates anyone, I genuinely don’t. I think we’ve had some problems with some advisers around Nigel who very much kept him in their pocket if you like and he’s had too much influence from them. But they’ve gone.’ She singled out Raheem Kassam, Farage’s ex-senior advisor, who she happily noted has left the party and returned to work for Breitbart, a ‘far right, Tea Party, American style shock-and-awe publication’ where she

Nigel Farage said today his critics need to put up or shut up and Douglas Carswell has chosen the former. Confirming that he is the ‘senior figure’ Farage mentioned earlier, the Clacton MP has written an op-ed in the Times tomorrow calling for a change in direction. He says that ‘Ukip has arrived — and Ukip is here to stay’ but calls for Farage to step aside as leader, temporarily or permanently: ‘On Monday, Ukip’s national executive committee made a decision to reinstate Nigel as party leader. Yet even leaders need to take a break. Nigel needs to take a break now.’ But in classic Carswell style, he denies that he

Ukip is embroiled in an almighty row about money. It suddenly has too much of it, apparently. Guido reports that Douglas Carswell is refusing to take the full £650,000 of Short money that his party is entitled to for running a parliamentary operation that represents the four million votes the party won in the election. Ukip HQ are insisting he should have it, while Carswell is insisting they only take £350,000. HQ sources have been handing out some pretty heavy briefings about Carswell refusing to represent the party’s four million voters. Given the Clacton MP has always operated in a rather detached manner within the party and could easily hold his

In this View from 22 podcast special, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and I discuss the final appointments in David Cameron’s new Cabinet and what they show about Cameron’s approach to party management. We also discuss David Miliband’s brutal interview about his brother’s term as Labour leader and why Nigel Farage has decided to hang on as leader of Ukip. You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer or iPhone every week, or you can use the player below: