Ukip snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

It’s day three of Ukip’s latest leadership contest and the party has found itself splashed across the front pages of today’s papers for all the wrong reasons. Following the bust-up in the European Parliament which left Steven Woolfe in hospital, Nigel Farage has promised to launch a Ukip investigation into what happened.

That hasn’t stopped the debacle from playing out on the airwaves. Mike Hookem, the MEP who was alleged to have hit Woolfe, denied doing so in an interview with the BBC. He said that he had acted in self-defence and did his best to downplay the row, joshing that it was just ‘handbags at dawn’:

‘There was a tussle between an elderly grandfather and a 40-year-old MEP, quite silly, quite embarrassing, handbags at dawn, girl on girl. It was embarrassing, it lasted seconds.’

For his part, Woolfe – who will spend a further two days in hospital recovering (where his colleague Nathan Gill said he was ‘sick of [eating] croissants’) – has apparently extended the ‘hand of friendship’ to Hookem. Yet Ukip’s chance of quietly moving on from the row does not look likely. The President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz has referred the row to the parliament’s committee, saying:

‘The reported facts are extremely serious. It goes without saying that disrespectful and violent behaviour does not have a place in the European Parliament.’

Regardless of the result of either inquiry, the damage to Ukip’s credibility is surely done. As Farage praised a Ukip councillor’s success last night in taking a seat from Labour in Hartlepool – with a 49.2 per cent swing – as proof the party are a serious threat to Labour, his fellow MEPs were busy announcing that Woolfe is no longer fit to stand for leader.

The party has a gilt-edged opportunity to snatch territory from Labour, which has alienated many of its core voters with its stance on the referendum – backing a motion on holding a second referendum at their conference in Liverpool. This ought to present an open goal to Ukip. But instead of scoring, the party is intent on tripping itself up.