Latest editorial
NIGEL FARAGE’S ramshackle stewardship of the right-wing UK Independence Party was in doubt yet again last night as senior party figures turned on each other in spectacular fashion.
With the party still reeling from its shambolic election performance and the resignation — and subsequent reappointment — of Mr Farage as leader, simmering tensions have erupted into open verbal warfare.
Mr Farage was widely derided for quitting as leader after failing to win the South Thanet seat in the general election, only to be reinstated three days later after the party’s national executive committee rejected his resignation.
Once derided by Farage as a ‘fraud,’ Jenrick has defected to Reform, bringing experience and political ruthlessness to the populist right — and raising the unsettling prospect of a Farage-led movement with a seasoned operative pulling the strings, says ANDREW MURRAY
Once again Tower Hamlets is being targeted by anti-Islam campaigners, this time a revamped and radicalised version of Ukip — the far-right event is now banned by the police, but we’ll be assembling this Saturday to make sure they stay away, says JAYDEE SEAFORTH
While Spode quit politics after inheriting an earldom, Farage combines MP duties with selling columns, gin, and even video messages — proving reality produces more shameless characters than PG Wodehouse imagined, writes STEPHEN ARNELL