Steven Woolfe isn’t just dropping out of the Ukip leadership race tonight, he’s quitting the party altogether. He has left with an attack on those who make Ukip ‘ungovernable’; echoing Arron Banks and Nigel Farage’s criticisms of the party’s National Executive Committee. (Though, given that Woolfe ended up in a fight in the European Parliament, he is perhaps not best placed to lecture on behaviour)
Woolfe’s departure—and the circumstances of it—shows how far off becoming a well-run political party Ukip is. As long as it persists with this in-fighting and backbiting, it won’t be able to take advantage of the huge opportunities that Jeremy Corbyn and Labour’s London-centric top team present the party with in the North and the Midlands. It is hard to think of a time when Labour has ever been more out of touch with its traditional working class support base in these areas.
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