The real reason Ukip are tearing each other apart

If the British establishment really wants to troll Ukip, then I suppose it ought to give Douglas Carswell a knighthood for blocking Nigel Farage’s knighthood.

He says he didn’t, of course, and I don’t see how he could have done. Farage, though, clearly thinks he did, and his wrath about this is the most fun thing to have happened in British politics for ages. He’s furious. His little demons are furious. Too furious, really. ‘This must be about something else,’ I kept thinking. ‘Deep down, it must be. But what?’

According to the great smoked kipper himself, in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, Carswell has been a thorn in the side of Ukip ever since he had the temerity to join it and then win two Westminster elections on its behalf. It didn’t mention knighthoods once, that article, although I’d like to think Farage winced forlornly at the byline. Instead it raged about Carswell’s closeness to Vote Leave, which, reckons Farage, directly contributed to that group becoming the official Out campaign in the referendum, rather than Ukip’s preferred Leave.eu