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New Ukip leader Paul Nuttall plans 'to replace Labour' New Ukip leader Paul Nuttall plans 'to replace Labour'
(about 7 hours later)
Paul Nuttall has been elected leader of Ukip by an overwhelming margin and said he will set the party’s sights on winning over disenchanted Labour voters. The new leader of Ukip, Paul Nuttall, has said he plans to shift the party in a different direction from Nigel Farage and would not seek to copy his predecessor’s cosy chats with Donald Trump, but instead focus on winning over former Labour voters.
Promising an end to the infighting and chaos that has blighted the party over recent months, the MEP and former deputy leader said his ambition was “to replace the Labour party and make Ukip the patriotic voice of working people”. “I want to make it perfectly clear: this leader of Ukip is not going to involve himself in foreign elections, period,” Nuttall told reporters after winning just under 63% of members’ votes to replace Farage. “My focus is here, in the United Kingdom, on winning council seats and on getting Ukip backsides on the green leather of the House of Commons.” He added: “I am my own man. I will be completely different to Nigel.”
Nuttall, 39, a former history lecturer, had been heavily tipped to win the party’s second leadership contest in little more than two months, but the margin of his victory over his main rival, Suzanne Evans, was unexpected. Addressing a crowd of supporters in central London after the result was announced, Nuttall said his main goal was to target voters in the former Labour heartlands, arguing that the party under Jeremy Corbyn was more interested in “dinner party” topics such as climate change and fair trade than immigration, crime and social mobility.
Nuttall won 62.6% of the 15,405 votes cast, from nearly 33,000 ballot papers initially sent to members. Evans, Ukip’s former deputy chair, won 19.3% of the votes, only 198 more than the rank outsider, John Rees-Evans, who gained 18.1%. Nuttall said: “My ambition is not insignificant: I want to replace the Labour party and make Ukip the patriotic voice of working people.”
Nuttall, an MEP for North West England, takes over from Nigel Farage, who had returned briefly as interim leader in October when his chosen replacement, Diane James, stepped down after just 18 days in the job, citing a lack of internal party support. The 39-year-old has in the past expressed some robust views on crime, abortion and the need for privatisation within the NHS. But after easily seeing off Suzanne Evans, his main rival to become Ukip’s third leader in little more than two months, Nuttall said he wanted to both unify the organisation after a period of chaos and division, and reposition it as “the party of common sense”.
On Monday Farage gave a valedictory speech in which he hailed Ukip’s key role in delivering Brexit and, he argued, paving the way for Donald Trump’s election as US president. Nuttall had been heavily tipped to win, but the margin of his victory was unexpectedly large. He took 62.6% of the 15,405 votes cast. Evans, Ukip’s former deputy chair, won 19.3%, only 198 votes more than the little-known outsider, John Rees-Evans.
“In this amazing, transformative and in many ways revolutionary year of 2016, it is Brexit that directly led to the establishment being defeated on 8 November and Donald J Trump being about to take up the presidency,” Farage said to cheers from Ukip supporters in the central London venue. “We were the inspiration behind that.” Nuttall, MEP for North-West England, takes over from Farage, who had returned briefly as interim leader in October when his chosen replacement, Diane James, stepped down after just 18 days in the job, citing a lack of internal party support.
Farage insisted he would not return as leader but would help as he could. “Am I going to be a backseat driver? No,” he told the crowd. “Will I support the leader of Ukip if they ask me to help? Yes.” Nuttall said it was “absolutely realistic” for the party to target a vote share of between 26% and 30% – it is currently on about 12% – and aim for more than 10 parliamentary seats at the 2020 general election.
Nuttall began his address by promising to build “a team of all the talents, from all wings of the party”, warning that Ukip’s recent history of plotting and splits would not longer be tolerated. This would be done, he said, by targeting resources on areas where Ukip has councillors, rather than what he called its former “scattergun approach”. He also promised to being back party unity, with overtures to both Evans and the party’s sole MP, Douglas Carswell.
“To those within the party who want to come together and unite, I say: we have a great and successful future,” he said. “To those who do not want to unify and want to continue with the battles of past, then I am afraid your time in this party is coming to an end.” Nuttall, who went to a state school in Bootle, Merseyside, is seen as more appealing to Labour voters in the north than Farage, a privately educated former commodities trader. However, a number of Nuttall’s own opinions will attract some scrutiny, including a now deleted post on his website that praised the then government for “bringing a whiff of privatisation” to the NHS.
Nuttall said the party would challenge the government over any “mealy-mouthed backsliding version” of Brexit that did not include full border controls. Nuttall says he supports the NHS as it is, but the Labour MP Jon Trickett responded to Nuttall’s election by saying Ukip had “sent a clear message that they pose a threat to our NHS”.
But he said the main goal was to target votes in the former Labour heartlands. Nuttall argued that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn was more interested in “dinner party” topics like climate change and fair trade than the interests of its working class voters, such as immigration, crime and social mobility. Nuttall also supports a referendum on the death penalty for people who kill children, an end to foreign aid, and a ban on the face-covering niqab for Muslim women. He has talked about seeking restrictions to abortion rights and questioned the reality of global warming.
He said: “My ambition is not insignificant: I want to replace the Labour party and make Ukip the patriotic voice of working people.” The new Ukip leader’s other focus will be the Conservatives, with Nuttall promising to pursue the government over a full departure from the EU. “If we don’t get real Brexit, and if we continue to have freedom of movement and we’re not allowed to sign our own trade deals and we still have to pay a membership fee to Brussels, and we still have to comply with EU regulations and directives – ie we stay in the single market – then I’m afraid that is a betrayal,” he said.
Nuttall won immediate support from Evans, who called the new leader “a unity candidate” and said she would take any job offered as part of his team. She added: “He has a huge mandate now to deliver that, and he has my full support.” In recent weeks Farage has spent much time and effort involved in US politics, speaking for Donald Trump before the presidential election and famously becoming the first UK politician to meet the US president-elect.
Nuttall, from Bootle in Merseyside, has strong rightwing views on crime, is open to a referendum on the reintroduction of the death penalty for child killers and opposes abortion. Making a valedictory address to the Ukip faithful before the leadership announcement, Farage appeared to argue that his work on Brexit had helped bring about Trump’s win. “In this amazing, transformative and in many ways revolutionary year of 2016, it is Brexit that directly led to the establishment being defeated on 8 November and Donald J Trump being about to take up the presidency,” he said.
The party has been unsettled by having two leadership contests in rapid succession after Farage announced his intention to stand down as leader in the wake of the EU referendum. Nuttall was at pains to distance himself from Farage, saying he was hopeful about Trump’s “anglophile” beliefs, but condemning as “appalling” some of the comments made by Trump on the campaign trail.
In the first contest Steven Woolfe, the favourite to succeed Farage, was disqualified from running because he submitted his application 17 minutes late, and Evans was not allowed to stand because she was suspended from the party. “I wouldn’t personally cosy up to him, no,” said Nuttall. However, he did say he would put up Farage for a peerage, if this was offered to the party, and wanted him to remain “front of house” as a regular media presence.
James, an MEP, was elected leader but stepped down after signing her official forms with the words “under duress” in Latin. She later said she did not feel she had the support of colleagues to carry out necessary reforms of the party’s national executive committee. Nuttall must now seek to unify a party riven by splits, which saw Evans – who has offered her full support to Nuttall – barred from standing in the last leadership election, and the initial favourite for this one, Steven Woolfe, pull out after a much publicised brawl with fellow MEP Mike Hookem.
A fresh contest was called, but Woolfe again had to withdraw after a fight with fellow MEP Mike Hookem in the European parliament in Strasbourg over reports he had been in talks about defecting to the Conservatives. Woolfe ended up in hospital after collapsing, and both men were investigated by the party, while the altercation was referred to French police by the European parliament president, Martin Schulz. News of the altercation, Nuttall said, left him “with my head in my hands, looking through my fingers”, and prompted him to stand as leader.
Nuttall in his own words
“I would like to congratulate the coalition government for bringing a whiff of privatisation into the beleaguered National Health Service. I would argue that the very existence of the NHS stifles competition” – post on Nuttall’s blog, now deleted
“Have you noticed that the ‘alarmists’ don’t call it global warming any more? No, they call it climate change, but only because their ‘hair-brained’ [sic] theory of global warming has fallen on its backside quicker than I did today when I slipped on the ice in Liverpool” – 2010 post on Nuttall’s blog
“You can’t walk into a bank wearing a crash helmet or balaclava – it is so CCTV cameras can clearly identify you. This is a security issue. Why should people wearing face veils be exempt from these concerns?” – comment made during the Ukip leadership campaign
“I don’t think that the kind of people who live in these areas will sign up to the kind of Labour party that Jeremy Corbyn leads, and will be interested in the kinds of things Jeremy Corbyn talks about” – to reporters, after his win
“There’s something going on in the continent of Europe. There’s an anti-establishment feel, which is growing, right across the rest of the world. And I want Ukip to be that vehicle here in the UK” – to reporters, after his win