Nigel farage

David Cameron’s speech and letter on EU reform have gone down as you might expect with Eurosceptics: they hated them. MPs and campaigners think the Prime Minister should be pushing for bigger reforms and the renegotiation is looking like a sham. Some have concluded the Prime Minister has spent the past six months traveling around Europe, asking what others find acceptable and his rhetoric today is based on what he can achieve — on red tape and competitiveness for example — instead of what is best for Britain. One Eurosceptic Conservative MP says there is disappointment across the party: ‘The Prime Minister’s letter and speech were very disappointing and weak. A strong negotiating position is not being

Oh dear. The Halloween plans of a group of Ukip supporters look set to turn into a nightmare for the event’s organiser. After Guido Fawkes reported earlier this month that a Farage-sceptic branch of ‘Kippers were planning a Halloween party with the theme ‘Nigel Farage and his creepy henchmen’, word reaches Steerpike that the event has now been cancelled. Richard Hendron — who launched a failed bid earlier this year to be selected as Ukip’s candidate for London mayor — has written to attendees explaining that he has cancelled the event after ‘the powers that be in Ukip’ failed to see the funny side. He says that they threatened him with suspension and

The death of Michael Meacher means the first by-election of this Parliament is upon us — as well as the first with Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. The exact timings have yet to be announced but sometime before the end of 2015 seems likely. The seat is likely to be a shoo-in for Labour: Oldham West & Royton and its predecessor constituency have been represented by Meacher since 1970 and by Labour since 1950 (minus one by-election in 1968). But strange things happen in by-elections and Ukip managed to increase its vote share in May’s general election by 17 per cent to 20.6 per cent. Labour has a whopping 14,738 majority but the Kippers

Is the infighting between the two campaigns for Britain to leave the EU drawing to a close? Coffee House understands that Arron Banks, the Ukip donor and founder of the Leave.EU campaign, has been in talks with Vote Leave, the other Brexit group run by Dominic Cummings and Matthew Elliott, about how the campaigns can work together better in the name of leaving the EU. Sources close to Arron Banks have told Coffee House that he is open to the idea of merging with ‘Vote Leave’ and taking a lower profile role in the EU referendum — acknowledging that the infighting is harming the Eurosceptic cause. The Leave.EU campaign say

Nigel Farage appears to have u-turned about backing one Brexit campaign. At the party’s recent conference in Doncaster, the Ukip leader said he would be standing ‘hand in hand’ with Arron Banks and his Leave.EU group. But on the Sunday Politics yesterday, he gave equal weighting to Vote Leave, the other Brexit effort which launched on Thursday evening out of the Business for Britain campaign group: ‘I support both of them. I listened to what Vote Leave had to say last week. They’re a Westminster based group, making business arguments. Arguing, as I’ve done in this interview, for us to be free to make our own trade deals. That is of value.

The mood at the Conservative party conference this week was a little subdued, and no wonder. As those who watched the television coverage will know, everyone entering the secure zone had to run a gauntlet of potty-mouthed protestors, their faces twisted into masks of hate. It’s not easy to celebrate after you’ve just been showered with spit and called a ‘Tory murderer’. Jeremy Corbyn made a point in his conference speech last week of asking his supporters to treat their opponents with respect and not descend to personal abuse, but I’m not sure how many of them got the message. If the atmosphere in Manchester was anything to go by,

Eurosceptic Tories have a new voice to herald their cause: Nigel Lawson. The former Chancellor and Spectator editor announced in an op-ed he is becoming the president of Conservatives for Britain, a group working with the Matthew Elliott-Dominic Cummings Out campaign. Lawson explains his explains his red lines for Britain remaining in the EU and suggests the government is unlikely to achieve them: ‘I am not party to the negotiations between ministers and the EU but it is clear that now is the time for David Cameron and George Osborne to set out some red lines. My priorities would be fourfold: the end of the automatic supremacy of EU law over UK law; the ability for

Ukip’s conference last week featured some characteristically colourful characters, including a lady with a Nigel Farage tattoo on her arm (and, strangely, one of Robert Smith of The Cure on the other). Significantly, though, attendance was down on last year. Sebastian Payne asked what the point of the party is, now that the Brexit referendum is coming and will answer their existential question either way. Iain Martin at Cap X then predicted that the party had run its course. It’s been a strange few months for the Kippers; a strong poll showing in May combined with a disappointing result, followed by Nigel Farage’s resignation and then un-resignation. Media attention has since focussed

Nigel Farage claimed at Ukip’s conference yesterday that all Eurosceptic groups were being brought together under the Leave.EU umbrella organisation, headed up by Ukip donor Arron Banks. However, the other Leave campaign, run by Matthew Elliott and Dominic Cummings, was notably absent and its representatives did not appear at the conference yesterday. Elliott’s Business for Britain group, which aims to give a voice to Eurosceptic businesses, was also not mentioned as part of the umbrella group. When I asked Farage about this, he said ‘they don’t want to leave, they want to wait and see what the Prime Minister has come back with’. Banks also told Coffee House he had approached the

Arron Banks is the man of the moment in Doncaster: Nigel Farage said in his speech he was ‘massively impressed’ with his efforts to bring the different Eurosceptic camps together. I caught up with the Ukip donor and founder of the Leave.EU campaign to chat about the referendum and what he hopes his new group will achieve — you can watch the interview above. Banks explained what his umbrella group is about: ‘We’ve been out to all the leading Eurosceptic campaigns – they haven’t always been the best of friends. There’s seven of them, including Ukip, Bruges Group, Democracy Movement, all different groupings and effectively we’re trying to bring them together

Nigel Farage held another event in Westminster this morning to announce the dates of his ‘Say No – Believe in Britain’ tour, through which he hopes to drum up support for a Brexit. While the venue and message were identical to his press conference in July, the Ukip leader did reveal some details: twelve regional co-ordinators have been chosen, 300 events are planned over the next few months and six million leaflets will be delivered by Christmas. In light of the British Future polling on the toxicity of Ukip’s immigration message, Farage was keen point out he will work with anyone to achieve a Brexit — even Jeremy Corbyn. He said that a Corbyn victory

Ukip’s selection procedure for its London Assembly and Mayoral candidates is ‘undemocratic’, the party’s own MEP for London has told Coffee House. Gerard Batten has refused to take part in the selection procedure because it is ‘undemocratic’, with the party’s London membership getting no vote on the candidates. He said: ‘If Ukip is a democratic party, then it should allow the London members to select the candidate. Ukip is nothing if not a grassroots party. Activists who are not allowed to vote for a candidate may not feel motivated to campaign for that candidate. Ukip talks a lot about the undemocratic nature of the European Union, so we should practise democracy in

Nigel Farage is trying to block Suzanne Evans from becoming Ukip candidate for Mayor of London with a covert campaign to install a less threatening, loyal party colleague in her place, sources have told Coffee House. Ukip will select its mayoral candidate this weekend. Evans is the bookies’ favourite and the best-known outside the party. But it has moved from a one member one vote system within the London party for picking its choice for the mayoral elections to a private selection. The six-strong panel for the selection includes a number of Farage loyalists, including Chris Bruni-Lowe, Paul Oakden and Mick McGough. Party insiders are furious that this panel seems to