UKIP in their own words - "A bunch of circus clowns"

Incredible as it may seem, Labour does actually have a serious rival for the "ferrets in a sack" award for the most divided political party, one so completely at war with each other than they couldn't run a bath, never mind the UK.

Labour's rival for this unwanted distinction is the  UK Independence party

Earlier this week the new UKIP leader resigned after 18 days in the job, declining to complete the process of registering herself with the Electoral Commission as party leader and putting Nigel Farage back in the job from which he has resigned several times (I've lost count.)

This resignation appears to have resulted partly from acrimonious meetings with her UKIP colleagues in the European parliament and party officials and partly for "personal reason" including a family illness.

Today one of her possible successors, Steven Woolfe, was taken to hospital in a serious condition after he collapsed following an “altercation” with a fellow MEP in the European Parliament.

There were allegations that he had been punched in the face. The married father-of-one, who is 49 today, fell over during the encounter and banged his head.

Even before the Woolfe incident, one of the most significant figures in UKIP, their donor Arron Banks, wrote an article in this morning's Guardian - yes, I did mean the Guardian, not the Telegraph - which suggested that UKIP is being run by circus clowns.

Mr Banks wrote that there is a "fifth column within Ukip" which he accuses the party's one MP, Douglas Carswell, and possibly their most effective media performer other than Farage, Suzanne Evans, of leading.

His words for the people he accuses of being in this group include being

"opportunist carpetbaggers" who "sought to seize control of the party."

Banks thinks that "this cabal would utterly destroy UKIP"

He describes the party's "outdated" national executive committee as

"populated by a motley collection of amateurs; leftovers from a bygone age, when UKIP was a ragtag band of volunteers on the fringes of British politics"

and adds that watching them trying to run UKIP is like

"watching a team of circus clowns trying to carry out a pit stop at the Silverstone Grand Prix."

Whenever a Tory such as David Cameron or Ken Clarke describes members of UKIP in the sort of language Arron Banks used in the Guardian today, Kippers such as Mr Banks invariably unite to describe this as a desperate smear which proves how afraid of UKIP the Conservatives are.

Yet Mr Banks' article appears to demonstrate that many of the most senior members of UKIP seem to despise each other even more than anyone else despises them.

And that's saying something!

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