The last NEC meeting of the increasingly Tommy Robinson-adjacent UKIP was entertaining for a number of reasons, not least of all the list of candidates approved for the next parliamentary election, a list which did not even survive the publication of the minutes.
Ten candidates were rubber-stamped by the newly constituted NEC. Sadly, two of them had long since declared they’d had quite enough of UKIP, thank you very much, and wandered off to pastures new. To Reform UK, to be precise.
Missing name
One, Leanne Barnes, tweeted many weeks ago that she had joined Reform UK who “have all the momentum”. Another, Nick Woods, had not only said just after the July election that he was fed up with UKIP, but was spied at a members-only Reform meeting at Sandown Park on 10 January, just three days after the NEC meeting.
Curiously, one name missing from the list is that of interim leader Nick Tenconi. His interim status was extended by the NEC to run up to the date of a new leadership election in March. He didn’t run in the July general election either, and we presumed he was a tad nervous about attending hustings where people might fire in questions about night club brawls, brotherly threesomes, or online contact with an Australian provider of exotic sexual services.
But, wait…careful perusal of the conditions of standing in the leadership election is that the prospective leader has to ‘agree to stand in one or more public elections as a UKIP candidate’. So that could be fun…
It was gratifying to see that UKIP Chairman Ben Walker pays some attention to what we write. Last week, on the 19th January we pointed out that although the UKIP NEC had decided that notice of the leadership election should be posted on the UKIP website on 6 January, nothing had yet appeared, except the record of the decision being taken buried in the NEC minutes themselves.
Grave oversight
Then, lo and behold, early the very next day this grave oversight was remedied, a mere six days before close of nominations as opposed to the 20 days decided upon by the NEC. One person, of course, who knew of the decision and thus had the full 20 days in which to prepare was Nick Tenconi.
And as we write, the deadline for nominations has just passed. We don’t know when the list of prospective candidates will be published but we will confidently repeat the prediction we made last week: Tenconi will emerge as the only candidate and there will be no need for a tiresome election.
That, of course, would precipitate a search for a new Deputy Leader once Tenconi has permanently vacated the position. Our money is on Richard Inman, Tommy Robinson’s right hand man, thus cementing the tie-up between Yaxley-Lennon’s racist street gangs and UKIP which we have been pointing out for months is now on the cards.
Watch this space…
