Diane James becomes new Ukip leader

[Blackleaf]

Diane James has just been elected the new leader of Ukip at their party conference in Bournemouth.

The MEP for South East England is a former businesswoman and healthcare professional and has been the party's home affairs spokeswoman.

She received 8451 votes and saw off four other contenders.

And, in her maiden speech as leader, she warned the government that "the people's army" will regroup if it only delivers "Brexit-lite" and also warned that Ukip are "the party of opposition" in waiting...

Diane James becomes UKIP leader

BBC News
16 September 2016

Diane James has been elected as the new leader of the UK Independence Party.

Ms James had been regarded as the favourite to succeed Nigel Farage, who quit as leader following the UK's vote to leave the EU.

The MEP for South East England is a former businesswoman and healthcare professional and has been the party's home affairs spokeswoman.

She saw off four other contenders: Bill Etheridge, Lisa Duffy, Liz Jones and Phillip Broughton.

Diane James becomes UKIP leader - BBC News

Diane James wants UKIP 'battle ready' for next general election

Diane James says she wants UKIP to be "battle ready, race ready" for the next general election.

Here, in full, are the results of the UKIP leadership election:

Diane James MEP: 8451

Councillor Lisa Duffy: 4591

Bill Etheridge MEP: 2052

Philip Broughton: 1544

Elizabeth Jones: 1203

Diane James: People's army will regroup if they get Brexit-lite

New UKIP leader Diane James warns Conservatives who wanted "Brexit-lite, associated Brexit or any other concoction" that the "people's army" - the party's self-styled nickname - are ready to fight.

She said 17.4 million people voted in the EU referendum to reach out to the world and the Commonwealth for bi-lateral trade deals.

"They voted to return political control to Westminster," she adds.

Diane James to Theresa May: Stop the faff and invoke Article 50

Diane James warns Prime Minister Theresa May that if she is watching her speech, she is watching the "party of opposition" in waiting.

She told the PM: "And Mrs May - from one grammar school girl to another - stop the faff, stop the fudge and the farce and get on with it - invoke Article 50 [the start of UK negotiations for leaving the EU]."

Dubbing those opposed to Britain quitting the EU "Remainiacs", she adds: "17.4 million people signed up to that, those issues, that declaration - voted to leave - that's what independence means, so don't ignore it Remainiacs."

Ms James asserts that UKIP stands for a sovereign United Kingdom, "a UK free to make trade deals with whoever and whenever we want and yes to an immigration policy that allows entry regardless of origin to those with the skills and expertise and the social values this country wants".


New UKIP leader as Nigel Farage bid farewell - BBC News

 

[petros]

A woman? That must piss you off?

 

[Blackleaf]

A woman? That must piss you off?

No need for the second question mark.

As for Ms James being a woman, this doesn't bother me. After all, my second-favourite politician after Mr Farage was a woman.

 

[petros]

Kim Campbell?

 

[Blackleaf]

Kim Campbell?

No. Margaret Thatcher.

And here's what Mr Farage did earlier at the party conference in his last moments as Ukip leader:

Nigel Farage calls for Britons to have their own passport

Holding up a copy of the burgundy European passport held by British people, Nigel Farage says: "The only time we'll know Brexit means Brexit is when that has been put in the bin and we get a British passport."

Nigel Farage: 'I think, folks, I've done my bit'

Nigel Farage says he has "put absolutely all of me" into Britain quitting the European Union.

"I literally couldn't have worked any harder, or couldn't have been more determined - it's been my life's work to get to this point," he said.

'I think, folks, I've done my bit'.

Nigel Farage bows out: 'I have given UKIP all of me'

Nigel Farage has bowed out as UKIP leader, saying he has put "all of me" into the party over the past two decades and he wants "his life back".

He told activists at the party conference in Bournemouth that leading UKIP had been like a "big dipper" and it had been an amazing journey.

He said UKIP had a future fighting to ensure Brexit happened and "harvesting" votes from Labour in the north.

Nigel Farage: 'I want my country back, but now I want my life back'

Nigel Farage finishes his final speech to the UKIP conference by saying that his political career is not over - and he for once is going to speak his mind.

He will continue to lead a group in the European Commission, sitting next to president Jean-Claude Juncker, "and making my constructive contributions", he said.

"I want my country back, but now folks I want my life back."

He thanked the party for helping him "change the course of British history", before leaving the Bournemouth stage to a further standing ovation.

Missing his moment? Nigel Farage attempts to give his successor a congratulatory kiss

'And another thing.... When you're UKIP leader, you should ...'

All smiles: Diane James leaves Nigel Farage's embrace to wave at UKIP devotees

Diane James: 'I will not try to be Nigel-lite'

New UKIP leader as Nigel Farage bid farewell - BBC News

 

[petros]

Did you really think I was going to read that crap?

 

[Blackleaf]

Did you really think I was going to read that crap?

It's not really something I gave much thought to, to be honest. It's just a thread, aimed at the general Canadiancontent readership. And my threads do get a lot of readers. I consider myself to be the greatest threader on this forum.

Au revoir Nigel Farage, the Kentish bloke who repainted Britain purple

Tim Stanley
16 September 2016
The Telegraph

Cheers. Farage at the annual Boxing Day hunt in Chiddingstone, Kent. CREDIT: LUKE MACGREGOR

The most significant politician of my generation was called Nigel. He drank, smoke and grew a moustache. He defied every convention of modern politics. He never even entered Parliament. Yet Nigel Farage helped pull Britain out of the EU and bring down a prime minister. With a CV like that, I suspect he’ll be back.

Nigel Farage said goodbye at the Ukip conference in Bournemouth (where else?) in his characteristic way. Marching up and down the stage, shouting – looking like he’s giving a motivational speech to a regional salesforce. One expects him to start throwing t-shirts out into the audience. And that staccato intonation: “It’s time… for Britain… to regain control… of its fishing waters.” Ah, that Ukip obsession with fishing – it says so much. Nationalism and agrarian romanticism combined. One can just imagine Farage in a jersey, hauling cod aboard a boat. Quite, quite drunk.

I’ve written a lot about Farage through the years. His critics think I’m a fan because I won’t simply state that he’s worse than Hitler. His fans think I’m a critic because I take the mick. The truth is that Farage fascinates and amuses me because he’s so recognisable. It’s personal.

Most politicians are robots. Their accents are undetectable; their opinions are identikit. Growing up in the age of Blair, I presumed the future belonged to bland PPE graduates and that any alternative to centrism was a debate for the margins. And the spin doctors did a jolly good job of suggesting that the entire country thought their way, that anyone who deviated to the left or right of a tiny spectrum of opinion was on their own. Hence Ukip wasn’t just wrong, it was a joke. Because it’s silly to disagree with the orthodoxy, isn't it? You must be mad, or ‘avin’ a laugh.

Farage sort of was having a laugh. Like many on the Right, he often seemed to be self-satirizing. But anyone who thought that he didn’t really think what he said didn’t understand where he came from. It’s where I’m from: Kent. Kent is not Midsomer Murders, a land of detached houses and swimming pools. It’s got plenty of that, but also a lot of docks, empty mines, mobile homes and, crucially, old pubs. Farage’s views and accent belong behind a bar in Ashford. And while you hear a lot of rubbish spoken behind bars, you also hear common sense. More importantly, you hear a kind of blunt honesty – the kind we stopped hearing on Newsnight or Question Time long, long ago.

So the rise and rise of Farage was never all about the EU. Or even about immigration. It was about the recognition of self. I’ve followed Ukip on the campaign trail as a reporter and I’ve seen local people react with a warmth and wonder at the very mention of Farage that’s hard to see reflected in any other politician’s reputation. I recall an old lady asking “Where’s Nigel, then? Down the pub?!” And she said it with such delight that she practically skipped. Farage is, for his many voters, a better man drunk than any of the robots are sober. You can hate them for that, or hate Farage for exploiting it with coded appeals to nationalism. But you also ought to hate Blair and Cameron for making politics so artificial that anyone – literally anyone – who sounded familiar to ordinary people won votes.

Not that many votes, though. Populist heroes remain heroes because they don’t get to run the country. Tony Benn and Enoch Powell were both denied the keys to Number 10 that they so craved, and Nigel never got a seat in the real Parliament – that is, the UK Parliament. The problem is that if you run on the politics of identity, you’ll alienate as many people as you’ll attract. Kent is very Ukippy, yes. But it’s also quite Lib-Demmy and super Tory. Tunbridge Wells voted Remain. Farage never spoke for all of us.

A populist risks ostracism. He also risks playing the prophet rather than the messiah. Farage may have made Ukip into a serious force, but Theresa May looks set to implement its manifesto. She gifts Tories a chance to reclaim Ukip’s voters, perhaps clouding Farage’s legacy. But the objectively-minded must concede that he has transformed politics despite never having held actual power. And he has revealed that the so-called progressive consensus exists only in London and online. Elsewhere, the country is shades of purple.

Au revoir Nigel Farage, the Kentish bloke who repainted Britain purple

To keep Ukip alive, Diane James must make herself Labour's worst nightmare

MATTHEW GOODWIN
16 SEPTEMBER 2016
THE TELEGRAPH

Passing the baton, Farage-style CREDIT: DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP PHOTO

The UK Independence Party (Ukip) has a new leader. With 47 per cent of the vote, the largest percentage for any of the candidates, Diane James has been chosen by the self-anointed "People's Army" to replace Nigel Farage.

After devoting most of his adult life to campaigning for Brexit, Ukip's charismatic talisman has finally bowed out of frontline politics. Having proved himself to be one of the most important politicians of his generation – despite having no presence in the House of Commons – Farage is now talking of helping Eurosceptic parties elsewhere in Europe and raising his profile in the United States.

Meanwhile James, who was personally recruited by Farage and is a close confidante of the former leader, becomes Ukip's eigth elected leader and first female leader in its twenty-three year history. The MEP for South East England and former deputy chairman will now be responsible for leading the anti-EU party into an era in which a majority of voters have just voted to leave the EU. In the national opinion polls Ukip continues to attract support from more than one in ten voters. But many challenges lie ahead.

Ukip’s conference followed an extremely difficult summer for the party; its future has never been more uncertain. In the immediate short-term James will have to grapple with the fact that Ukip is far from unified. Once the public had actually voted to leave the EU, the party found itself without an anchor. Within days the movement that David Cameron had dismissed to his peril had imploded from within and was divided into warring factions.

One problem was that Farage never had a clear successor. While his long-time deputy, Paul Nuttall, decided not to run, the eventual Farage-backed candidate, Steven Woolfe, was then declared ineligible to stand after submitting his paperwork late. Those loyal to Farage subsequently flocked to James, the talented MEP who is best known for almost capturing Eastleigh at a parliamentary by-election in 2013.

But others in Ukip who have become critical of Farage’s strident tone and style of leadership, such as Suzanne Evans, Gerard Batten and Patrick O’Flynn, instead backed a largely unknown councillor named Lisa Duffy who promised to clamp down on radical Islam and invest more heavily in mental health. The result is division and animosity. Bringing unity to the small party will not be easy.

Then there are the organisational problems, such as the lack of a young and active membership, a shortage of money, and unresolved questions over Ukip's structure. Farage was an asset to Ukip not only because of his ability to connect with blue-collar Britain but also raise funds from a network of wealthy donors in the City. But it is not yet clear whether Farage, who is talking of spending more time in the United States, will continue to play such a hands-on role. There is also strong disagreement over the future of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) which many around Farage blame for having kept Woolfe off the ballot and stifling progress. During the leadership contest Diane James pledged to "ditch the NEC" but many will resist such a move, viewing the body as a direct line to grassroots members.

There are other problems too. Since the referendum Arron Banks, the prominent Ukip donor and Leave.EU founder, has announced his own plans to establish a "right-wing Momentum", tentatively named "The People’s Movement". Banks has lots of money, data and a strong appetite for staying politically active. Yet it is not clear how his movement will co-exist with Ukip, whether it will draw resources away from the party or if, over the longer-term, it will evolve into a political party in its own right.

Then there is the biggest challenge for Ukip in a post-referendum world, namely how to modify its offer to the electorate. Ukip’s rise was fueled by economically struggling voters who want to leave the EU, end mass immigration and loathe the political class in Westminster. But now that the country has voted for Brexit and immigration reform, two of the core pillars in Ukip’s message appear to be crumbling.

Britain's political landscape is also now entirely different to that which fueled the rise of Farage. David Cameron’s more socially liberal brand of conservatism is out, while Prime Minister Theresa May is parking her own tanks on Ukip’s lawn. Her strong support for grammar schools, always a favourite talking point at Ukip events, will appeal to traditional social conservatives who flocked to Farage. May has also underscored her commitment to tackling disadvantage and injustice within white working-class communities, those same areas that catapulted Ukip to the forefront of politics in England. Furthermore, assuming that the government is able to introduce meaningful reform of immigration, then Ukip will find that the space it enjoyed during its breakthrough period has been greatly reduced.

May, who has already been described as Britain's most right-wing Prime Minister since Thatcher, is adopting Ukip policies

For this reason, it could be argued that Ukip’s greatest potential going forward lies more in Labour than Conservative territory, where the party is already the second party in 44 Labour-held constituencies. Taking advantage of the tangible disillusionment with Jeremy Corbyn and the utter failure of his party to talk about immigration, Englishness and belonging in ways that resonate with blue-collar Britain is an obvious avenue to pursue.

Either way, with elections on the horizon we will soon have an answer to the question of whether or not Ukip will survive as a political force. Next spring, local elections will present the first real test of Diane James’s leadership. These contests will be held in Conservative areas where Ukip has polled strongly in the past, such as Buckinghamshire, Kent, Lincolnshire and Norfolk, and also Labour strongholds like Doncaster and Wales where, earlier in this year, Ukip enjoyed a significant breakthrough. Between now and then, Ukip and its new leader will need to demonstrate real progress if they are to convince the electorate and wider country that they can remain a real force.

To keep Ukip alive, Diane James must make herself Labour's worst nightmare

 

[Blackleaf]

What I've noticed is that the British MSM keep banging on about how Farage tried to kiss Diane James but she looked like she tried to avoid the kiss (it's mentioned in almost every national newspaper today....

..... but then when you look at the actual video of events you see that this seems to be false. The British MSM are lying!

You also have to laugh at the Sky News commentator's attempts to try and make Ukip look like a divided party.

"That by my reckoning more people voted for other candidates than Diane James.. A party riven with division"

Yet, even though more people voted for the other candidates than voted for James, James still got 47% of the votes. So almost half of those who voted voted for her. With just five candidates, one received 47% of the vote. It actually shows a strong degree of unity.

 

[Danbones]

I find the distortions in the press fascinating and telling

 

[Blackleaf]

I find the distortions in the press fascinating and telling

I find this one especially fascinating, considering it only takes a look, on YouTube, at the video of her on stage yesterday with Farage to see how the media are telling a pack of lies.