Wanderlust

Tag: nigel farage

  • UKIP AM Caroline Jones quits party over ‘far-right move’

    Caroline Jones Image caption Caroline Jones lost a leadership election to Gareth Bennett in the summer

    The former leader of the UKIP group in the Welsh Assembly has resigned from the party.

    Caroline Jones claimed UKIP leader Gerard Batten was alienating his members by moving the party to the far-right.

    The AM for South Wales West, who will now sit as an independent, said UKIP was taking “a direction that I’m not comfortable with”.

    But Mr Batten said her statement was “politically correct twaddle”.

    The resignation means the UKIP group has four AMs left from the seven which entered the Senedd in 2016.

    Image caption Gerard Batten has taken the party in “a direction I’m not comfortable with”, Caroline Jones said

    She told BBC Wales: “The party has taken a direction that I’m not comfortable with.”

    Mrs Jones said Mr Batten was changing the party “to a more far-right position, which a lot of the long-standing members are finding quite unfavourable, including myself”.

    “I never joined the party to be part of a far-right organisation. I joined the party because I wanted to come out of the European Union. I still do.”

    “Gerard Batten should listen to all sides and try to mediate and bring people together, as opposed to alienating them”, she added.

    ‘Politically ineffective’

    Mr Batten was appointed leader earlier this year, after former UKIP leader Henry Bolton was sacked.

    He is the fourth person to lead UKIP following the EU referendum.

    Caroline Jones took over the UKIP group in May after she was backed by David Rowlands and Michelle Brown in a vote.

    However, Welsh UKIP members voted over the summer for Gareth Bennett to succeed her and lead the assembly group.

    Mr Batten said: “I have brought the party back from financial meltdown, raised funds, raised membership numbers, and raised UKIP in the polls. Ms Jones has contributed nothing that I am aware of.”

    He added: “Her statement is politically correct twaddle to disguise the fact that Mrs Jones is politically ineffective. I wish her well languishing in the outer realms of irrelevance.”

  • No takers for £25,000 portrait of Nigel Farage

    Portrait of Nigel Farage Image copyright David Griffiths

    A £25,000 portrait of Nigel Farage, on display as a part of the Royal Academy’s prestigious summer season exhibition, has didn’t draw in any buyers.

    The oil portray, signed through the artist David Griffiths, was one in all hundreds of works of art to be had on the market during the Academy’s 250th summer time show, which closed on Tuesday.

    The academy said the paintings could now return to the artist.

    Mr Griffiths has stated that he hoped it could “find a excellent house”.

    “These Items ebb and flow,” he mentioned. “Prices of artwork like the whole lot else, aren’t set in stone. he is a major determine, whatever you’re thinking that of him. He Is Mr Brexit, is not he?”

    The fee was steered by a mutual loved one of the artist, whose different topics have integrated Prince Charles and rugby superstar Shane Williams.

    Farage to head ‘on the road’ with Depart workforce Farage heads ‘down under’ on Brexit excursion

    A key figure within the 2016 referendum marketing campaign, Mr Farage has pledged to return to frontline British politics this fall to struggle for Brexit,

    The portrait of the MEP and former UKIP leader, in his trademark tan-coloured coat and striped tie, used to be not the one politically-themed paintings not to find a purchaser.

    A £350,000 paintings by way of the artist Banksy entitled Vote to love, featuring a center-formed balloon superimposed over a UKIP referendum poster, also remained unsold.

    But a painting of every other prominent Brexiteer, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, did fetch £450.