With nominations for the Ukip leadership contest set to close at the end of the month, today Suzanne Evans called a press conference to make a ‘significant announcement’ about the future. However in light of the current hostage situation in France and Labour’s upcoming court battle, her speech failed to make it onto the news channels.
Perhaps that was for the best given that Evans — who is currently suspended from Ukip for disloyalty — used the conference to announce that she would neither be quitting the party nor running for leader. Instead, she promised to fight to make sure Ukip was a party founded on the ‘common sense centre ground’ rather than a ‘hard right Tea Party tendency’. Speaking of her disappointment at not being eligible to run for leader, she accused the NEC of behaving like the European commission and likened the party to a ‘rugby club on tour’.
However, the crux of her speech was her endorsement for Lisa Duffy — a Ukip councillor — to succeed Nigel Farage. Compared to the current leadership favourite Steven Woolfe, Duffy, who serves as Patrick O’Flynn’s chief of staff, is a relative unknown to the general public — boasting just 297 Twitter followers. The fact that Evans, who has long been touted as a leadership favourite, is having to back someone with no profile rather than run herself highlights the bitter fractions in the party.
In the light of the referendum result and Farage’s departure, Ukip have an opportunity to win over disenfranchised Labour voters. In order to do this, the next leader will need to transform the party into one that can work together to win elections rather than one too often consumed by bouts of civil war.
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