Rebecca Jane Sutton (aka simply ‘Rebecca Jane’) was Deputy Leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party from October 2022 to January 2024. Rebecca has decided that Searchlight would be an appropriate vehicle to carry an open letter from her to UKIP members. After reading that letter, we feel that she is right. We are, of course, in no position to verify what Rebecca reports. We were not there – and in most cases nor was anyone else. They are unwitnessed events.
Although this is the first instance of all of these allegations being assembled as a whole, several parts of the story are already in the public domain, especially on Twitter (aka X). Ben Walker has therefore had numerous opportunities to attempt to rebut some of these points, and as far as we can tell has not done so. He may soon avail himself of the opportunity. He may even apply to do so via Searchlight.
Here, with only minor edits for clarity, is the full text of Rebecca’s letter…
For more than a year I have read or been informed about Searchlight articles on ‘far right political entities’ and, at times, myself. One of your articles and claims about me was absolutely false, but the rest were your opinion. As a passionate believer in ‘free speech’, I did not oppose these.
From the person you like to call Rebecca ‘Barbie’ Jane, here are my thoughts and inside knowledge of UKIP.
When will the National Executive Committee (NEC) of UKIP step in and halt the immoral behaviour of their leadership? When I departed my role as the deputy leader of UKIP, I alerted the board to my concerns. Those went ignored and unanswered. They have the power to stop the behaviour at the top, yet they chose to ignore it. That is why we need to make the public aware.
Ben Walker. The chairman. He ‘headhunted’ me to become leader of UKIP. Neil [Hamilton, then party leader – Ed] had long wished to stand down. On 3 September 2022, Ben asked me to become leader. When I doubted if this was possible, he said “Trust me, I’ll make it work.”
On 4 October, after another meeting with Ben, he said “Trust me, I’m going to make you my leader RJ x”, but I refused the position. I agreed instead to become the deputy leader, because I didn’t believe it was right for me to step into the leader’s shoes so easily. Deputy would allow me to find my feet in the political world. Whatever you think of Neil, I liked him, and thought I could learn a lot as his number two.
I informed Ben that I would only take the position if the board wanted me. I was told they were consulted, and they did. Neil spoke with me and said my only role would be to give UKIP press coverage. Being the person I am, I sought to do more than that. I wasn’t ‘tasked’ with uniting centre right, I decided it was for the best. In fact, the board didn’t really want to unite.
I believed it was for the good of the party, and specifically, any possible longevity. Frankly, they all know UKIP is dying out. Memberships are next to nothing, and legacies are non-existent. I believed UKIP could be a great ‘activist’ group, but as a political party this was the end.
Ben supported uniting parties, because he wanted them all to be under an umbrella – one that he controlled. He wanted to call it ‘We Are The People’, which was awful. We floated the idea to Reform, Reclaim, Heritage, Alliance for Democracy and Freedom (ADF) and the English Democrats (ED). The logo of the new party was appalling. A ‘black lives matter’ style fist symbol in the UKIP colours, that I ordered Ben to remove immediately.
Reclaim agreed to unite, as did ED. ADF wanted to, but the UKIP board refused to talk to them, because it is run by former UKIP member Mike Hookem [best known for a punch-up with a fellow UKIP MEP in Strasbourg – Ed]. I’d had some dealings with Mike, but he refused to speak with me, because I was female, and they only wanted to talk to Neil. But Neil refused to speak to ADF again after he attended a five-hour dinner with them where Dr Teck [Teck Khong, ADF’s leader – Ed] did not speak, only Mike Hookem. The board also blocked me from speaking with David Kurten of Heritage, because of his previous association with UKIP. I only heard from him after I left the party.
I tried to unite with Reform, and I made good ground. But again because of past UKIP problems, they refused to ‘officially’ talk. The board were furious. They despised Nigel. The moral of this is that UKIP have burnt their bridges so badly, no unification is really possible. It didn’t just become ‘tiresome’, it became impossible. My intentions to all parties were clear, if we can’t unite under one banner, then I was happy to fold UKIP into the most appropriate party. I knew Neil would not disagree, because he didn’t have any involvement in running UKIP.
If you document this letter, please print this. Whilst a lot of people have negative things to say about Neil, I don’t. Neil was incredibly supportive of everything I tried to do, and listened to all of my frustrations. We were both held back in our roles by Ben. Ben controls Neil’s twitter account, and 9/10 statements that were put out, supposedly from Neil, were from Ben. I despised the vulgar and uncouth public messages put out in the name of Neil and UKIP. They didn’t and don’t reflect the party’s thoughts – certainly not mine. They are Ben’s words.
You may call me naive – in fact, I’ll call myself naive. I didn’t realise what I was getting into. I thought this was a political party, not one man. Ben, and his assistant (also assistant to his personal company) are the only people who make money from UKIP. That is why he clings on to his position.
I was sent a couple of articles about Ben’s past, which concerned me. Given I was having things written about me that were entirely false, I gave Ben the benefit of the doubt. I now know they were true.
I resigned for a number of reasons. I knew I had been placed into the role inauthentically. I knew UKIP had no future, and with the fight-back from the board I knew I was not supported in finding any future. And I knew they were running on nothing but ego.
Alongside this, my daughter and father had been diagnosed with serious medical conditions, and I was also becoming physically very unwell. I was ultimately diagnosed with endometriosis, adenomyosis, 14 stomach ulcers, erosive gastritis & esophagitis, and a hernia.
I questioned why I was bothering, when the future was hopeless. I stood for authenticity, and I could no longer speak about what UKIP would do for the public, because the foundations were a lie, and it was making me unwell. I resolved to depart from my role and focus on my health and family.
The recent leadership election was the final straw that led me to speak the whole truth.
In September 2023, I told a number of board members that Ben was lining Lois Perry up to be the leader, just like he had done with me. I knew it when Ben booked me on to a Talk TV show ‘the woke that was’, which was hosted by Lois. Frankly, I didn’t want to do it, but he begged me. He then lined her up as a speaker at the October UKIP conference, and was found, out the back of the building, holding a phone to his head for 20 minutes, so she could film a TV segment.
He sat her at our dinner table and flirted with her all day and night. It was embarrassing, and the writing was on the wall – despite Lois saying she couldn’t even become a member of UKIP because it would be ‘career suicide’.
Ben told me that, if I wanted to be party leader, he would have to call an election, in accordance with the UKIP constitution. He said he should be able, in various ways, to discourage or divert nominations for people he thought could beat me. And that there was no question that, with his help, I would win the election. (I have no doubt that all of this applied equally to Lois Perry’s recent election.) Ultimately, too much plotting did not sit well with me, which is why I opted for the role of deputy in September of 2022.
When it was announced Neil was standing down, I went with him because I knew what was coming. And while they asked me to stand for leader, I refused.
In the early days of the latest leadership election, I lived in hope that it would be authentic. But I knew it wasn’t going to be when I gave Ben the names of two people who’d contacted me to say they wanted to run in the election. They were EXCEPTIONAL candidates. He claimed to have ‘lost their communications’, and when I asked the people directly, they simply said Ben ignored them.
I expressed some concern that I could not be a deputy to Anne-Marie Waters, who was favoured in some UKIP circles to become leader. Ben told me I didn’t need to worry, because he would make sure that she didn’t successfully submit an application. I then watched Lois on GB News, giving interviews, saying ‘when I become leader…’ I knew what was unfolding, which is when I spoke the truth.
Why did Ben ‘lose’ the applications from credible candidates that would – in my opinion – have been far better placed than Lois? Because he wouldn’t be able to control them. Ben selected Lois, like he once selected me, because he thought she would be flattered by the position and do what he said.
I certainly didn’t do that. I published screenshots of inappropriate messages Ben sent to me. They were from the early days of when I took the role, because he thought he stood a ‘romantic’ chance. Eventually, when he was constantly ignored, he left me to my job, and I had no support from UKIP. In my final six months, I was totally alone bar a couple of board members and the odd supportive call from Neil. Ben was nowhere to be found, and it was a constant complaint amongst the board
I assume Ben thought I would fall at his feet for making me deputy – but I was there to try making a difference, not because I thought it was a great role. In fact, it was a poisoned chalice. I alerted ALL board members when I resigned of the truth about Ben and what was really going on. A couple fought back, until Ben ordered them to ignore me. They ALL did nothing.
I begged them to make sure the leadership election was authentic. I sent them the names of who wanted to run, told them to request applications, and ultimately count the votes for themselves. None of that happened… and Lois was elected leader.
There are far too many people involved with UKIP who have disturbing pasts, none more so than the chairman himself. My question is: why are the board not speaking publicly and revolting against this? Indeed, when I was there one board member asked what they could do if the authenticity of the chairman came into question, but he was never answered, and the question was forgotten.
I have nothing against Lois. She would be a great election candidate, but leader of a political party? No. Just like I wasn’t either! Do I think her resignation excuse about health is authentic? No. My resignation statement was distributed, stating similar reasons, at the request of the board. Whilst it had a lot of truth, it wasn’t the whole truth, which is why I spoke independently. Similarly, Lois read all I had to say, and while she has / had my number, she didn’t get in contact to substantiate what I said. Probably because she already knows it was the truth.
UKIP as we once knew it, whatever your thoughts about it, is over. It is not a democracy, it is one man’s ego trip of a party that earns him and his business a decent wage. I despair for the people who are still subscribed, and pay towards it, because they are doing nothing more than lining one man’s pocket.
Do I like having to publicly speak this truth? No. It doesn’t help my ongoing health problems, but it’s simply the right thing to do. I can’t, in good conscience, sit back and let people keep giving money and trust to UKIP. If the board won’t act, I will.
[Editor’s note: There are a number of references on Rebecca’s letter to ‘the board’. UKIP as a party has a National Executive Committee, while its alter ego UKIP Ltd has a board of directors. But because those two bodies are composed of almost exactly the same people, the terms ‘the NEC’ and ‘the board’ are virtually interchangeable.]
Who dares to imply SEARCHLIGHT reverted to publishing Purest Pulp Fiction originating from the self-admitted mentally-ill? Rebecca is the sanest and saintliest and trustworthiest of us all!
GBeebie Jane is authentically real, a virtuous Lady of the highest calibre and intellicked, which is why she got elected as “leader” and everyone begs her to take jobs, not the opposite with her doing her best work on her back or on her knees.
Not to mention, great loyalty she has shown to so many. Talent too, few know she was a millionaire at twenty, before losing it all. So she says. Paul Howarth is a liar who tried to take advantage of her, not the other way around.
She even donated to my ‘defence’ fund which money I won’t use to procure more obscene sex videos from vulnerable, barely legal, young men, ideally straight dudes who are getting a good seeing-to by butch blokes.
I’m not into girls, but I know Rebecca is the most charitable person who ever lived about whom the Charity Commissioners never heard, so much so that no one need to pay her for lewd overweight photos because there’s enough of them scattered across the internet for free.
The GB News locker room has her Daily Star celebrity gallery ones from 14th August 2017. She was trying ever so hard to make sure most of that nipple was covered, fighting with her mega inflatables which are all not inauthentic and natural, naturally, no fake could ever pass her sweet natural lips.
When I first clapped eyes on her I thought like wow, that’s Marilyn Monroe reincarnated, a deadringer, demure and bashful.
She’s just as much against hypocrisy and double standards as I am. She never invents, exaggerates or attacks without proof and calls many people liars and questions their motives, including leaders of other parties, rival candidates including the one who spurned her, all climatologists who don’t agree with her, the list goes on. Honestly, she doesn’t need to panic if Elon activates the premium View Deleted Tweets button. How dare these footballers claim it wasn’t she who rejected them but quite the converse!
To claim that her incompetence and greed were called out by her former U.K.I.P. comrades and so she has viciously come to attack them would be a final injustice. She is the denius behind dribble FM!
Naturally it would never occur to her, as the spurned un-gold-digger, to try and destroy the happy personal life of a dedicated Royal Navy veteran and selfless worker for the libertarian cause by helping spread distortions and forgeries to his fiancee. Never would she pshop screen-shots and delete context to make the innocent victim of sexual harassment appear to be the predator.
Envy is foreign to her, and what the Ugly Sister Nicola Gregory may have said was a jealous lie!
Everyone must believe every thing Fragrant Jane claims, without checking or thinking but just on faith. In Bath we want her beatified.
Generations unborn will surely marvel that such a Holy Mother ever walked as flesh and blood upon our green and peasant lands.
I was a member in the 90s. If I’d stayed in,would I have been the leader?
Barbie definately worthy of a Booker prize!!!!
Dear Rebecca,
Thank you for your belated honesty and courage. I see you are already being smeared in responses above. Ignore them and keep all the evidence.
You are the most fearfully naive of people, suspecting nothing about the expelled (for falsifying his application) magistrate also with multiple criminal convictions involving dishonesty, fined £11,000+ and escaping prison only because his former Tory colleagues in S.Glos council wanted to cover up that they let this rogue builder operate for years in an official planning capacity, notorious in Bradley Stoke for cheating people including customers with his shoddy substandard work, suppliers and the taxman, a liar who significantly embellished a very humble Royal Navy ‘career’ as a stores clerk (always land-based except for brief jaunts to shuffle papers on a desk while afloat) not even reaching the rank of petty officer, a cowardly pirate who usurped power in a series of illegal coups from the rightful officeholders in UKIP, using a corrupt lawyer and a band of “useless imbeciles”. That was his own, accurate description of those whom he also refers to as “cvnts” who need “smoking out”, “weirdos”, “nutters”, “like a dog with two dicks”, “self-important little twit(s)”, “pest(s)”.
That he has not yet been jailed for embezzlement etc is a running sore and affront to justice.
Your assertion that no significant legacies have come in, merely on the basis of nothing being credited to UKIP’s bank accounts and submissions to the Electoral Commission and at the companies house registrar, underlines your naivete. Your former boss hasn’t even been a UKIP director since last February. Instead the dementia-ridden, ex used car-salesman “Treasurer” whom he and his rubber-stampers appointed years ago may eventually carry the can for a string of offences including theft, false accounting and breaches of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
But you assisted this crook, yet another useful idiot of his. Did it not ring deafening alarm bells when he so helpfully instructed you “I would prefer you not to be in the WhatsApp groups. You would be inundated with nonsense and idiots. I want to put a little distance between the leadership and members. Members mustn’t think they have a hotline to you.” This, in the party claiming to be the “Free Speech” one?
Did it not occur to analyse his motives, other than the evident sexual one, for isolating you this way? That you would remain deaf to the truth?
Now is your opportunity to atone, Rebecca, and do the Right Thing for Britain.
Here is how.
Do not trust any existing or recent national officer within UKIP. The final pair who were merely dopes, the retired Squadron Leader and the school governor, have, as you know, had their eyes opened and quit. Seen which of them likes your comments on Facebook?
Your Shun List most definitely must include Mr Cheat & Liar Cash-for-Questions who sweet talks you, playing on your hunger for praise, the South Western Witch, the one who’s been professing to be dying for a decade who defends him and lies about him, the evil being residing on the south coast, the hypocritical unfaithful husband in Berkshire, the “nutters” in the North and Farther North, etc.
They will try to gather information to be used to intimidate you into silence. A disturbing and extensive chronicle of their hatred of you, expressed since January, in their “Smoked Haddock Banter” group makes for shocking reading.
Your evident ignorance of the history of UKIP between 2016 and 2020 is not helped by the enormous lies and distortions you were fed by the gang. “In the age of the internet, willful ignorance is the ultimate sin”
The people you should consider reaching out to are exactly the people, none of whom are overtly poltiical any more, who the convicted crook and traitor to his country instructed you to have nothing to do with, those whom he “warned” you about.
For these are the brave and good people who opposed or even stood up to him and his gang of fellow vermin and “useless imbeciles”.
Stop being a chump, Rebecca, and attempt to make contact, or even reply here. If you don’t realise you need help, then, however, it is pointless, and you will never be able to atone for your part in the outrage and betrayal of our beloved country by unprincipled and shameless thieves.
But WE know everything she said is true. Which leaves the two idiots on here attempting to rubbish her, looking like saddo’s.
Why they would even think about taking ukip’s side. I’ll let you guess…..
Bravo Rebecca!
But the low-achievement muttonheads whose egos compel them to cling tightly to the powerless, meaningless, empty UKIP titles and positions that the convicted criminal BENJAMIN LEE WALKER bestows upon them are much too stupid to comprehend what has been going on for years, and believe the unending lies from him and his wankergang. I suspect they are addicted to his arsejuice too.
Think you got the wrong end of the stick, though, about how much in legacies left by those who didn’t have a clue has already been pinched by him, which never touched UKIP’s “books” and obviously no hint of which got to the Idiots Chamber called the NEC. No use you telling them, way beyond their meagre abilities.
Faking that election, more likely the results were the other way around, could be his undoing.