Lois Perry, newly elected UKIP leader
Against all expectations, Lois Perry has succeeded Neil ‘Liar and Cheat’ Hamilton as Leader of UKIP, once the UK’s principal and highly influential far right party, but now on life support. When the votes were counted it was announced that she had garnered some 77% to rival ‘Bungalow’ Bill Etheridge’s 21%.
First point of interest is that the actual number of votes has not been published by UKIP Chairman and Returning Officer Ben ‘rogue builder’ Walker. Given the state of decline into which the party has slipped this may not be surprising; what is a surprise, however, are the figures actually being bandied around internally as to how steep that decline has been: it is rumoured that only around 300 party members took part in the ballot.
Whatever the turnout, Perry has pulled off a bit of a coup. Etheridge was Walker’s favoured candidate (and that of other senior party veterans like Pat Bryant)) and has a pedigree as a former UKIP MEP. Perry, on the other hand, is an anti-net zero campaigner who presents as, well, a bit witless.
She may have other qualities, however, which will endear her to Walker, who is probably missing a female touch around the office. A number of charming, vivacious young females parachuted into HQ as Chairman’s appointments in the last couple of years haven’t lasted very long. Patrons Co-Ordinator (and clairvoyant) Joanna Grzesiak, and General Secretary Treasure Okwu each survived only a few months before packing up and slipping quietly away.
Treasure Okwu with Ben Walker in happier days
Former Patrons Co-ordinator, Joanna Grzesiak
Rebecca Jane, the former Deputy Leader also appointed by Walker, was the most prominent departure, and she used the occasion to fire off a salvo of allegations about Walker’s alleged libidinousness and his intentions towards her when he put her in post. She even suggested that Walker held a bit of a candle, so to speak, for Lois, but we are sure she knows how to look after herself.
Ironically, whereas Rebecca Jane was nicknamed ‘Barbie’ by some members and hated it, Perry has embraced the image with relish:
She may not be quite so pleased when she hears that the nickname quickly assigned to her by disgruntled Etheridge supporters is ‘Barbie fail…’
One of her first tasks as Leader, however, will be to quiz Walker about the mysterious Trust that he alone controls, and which now owns and controls the party, and why income from legacies and reportable donations seems recently to have fallen off a cliff.
Politically, Perry’s election will almost certainly herald UKIP disappearing further and faster down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Whereas Etheridge was an old school anti-immigration, anti-Europe traditionalist, Perry is right up there with the climate-denying, anti-ULEZ, anti-15-minute cities, anti-net zero conspiracy-obsessed nut jobs. Up till now she’s been running the pro-car lobby group Car26 and has said she’s not that bothered by immigration. In a previous incarnation she was the SE Representative of Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party and appears regularly on GB News. She also claimed that she “had a moment” with Boris Johnson; “something could have happened, but it didn’t…”
Maybe she’s in a minority and the low turnout allowed her to win through, or as seems more likely maybe the membership is now shorn of the traditionalist old guard and is up for a new era of conspiracy mongering.
There was, of course, one elephant trap awaiting them: stir up any press interest in the new leader and you might just expose them to difficult questions about Rebecca Jane’s allegations, or about the mysterious trust, or indeed, about the Chairman’s recent brush with the Ministry of Justice who fired him as a magistrate for not declaring his criminal convictions on his application. That eventuality was deftly avoided by announcing the result at the very media-unfriendly hour of 6.00 pm.
The newly appointed Deputy Leader is also interesting: it’s Nick Tenconi, till now the COO of Turning Point UK, and a chap of forthright views: two years ago, he posted a tweet describing himself as a “huge fan” of Kyle Rittenhouse, the US right winger who shot dead two people at a demonstration, was acquitted of murder in 2021, and has been a darling of the extreme right ever since. Tenconi was centrally involved in the anti-drag queen protests in south London last year and his mission, it seems, is to ‘crush communism’.
It’s all such a long, long way from forcing David Cameron to hold a referendum…
“it is rumoured that only around 300 party members took part in the ballot.”
That would mean UKIP has at least 300 active members in total. No way!
Let alone, 300 who would spend 85 pence on a stamp to post in their vote. There was no online ballot. There was no independent monitoring.
Fools were asked to trust as sole unsupervised Returning Petty Officer (never made it that far, another lie) a rogue builder with five known convictions involving dishonesty and who since lied in his written and in-person applications to become a J.P. and was then booted out by the judiciary and who is siphoning money out of the erstwhile party at a rate of knots, monkeyfisted ones, under the noses of his handpicked board of idiots and suckers.
Likely Walker made up the numbers.
In no universe could comefromnowhere dumb blonde Barbie-Wannabe Lois Perry, Teleprompter-Bad-Fail, beat Etheridge, let alone steamroller him 77.4 to 20.89.
(Which don’t even add up to near 100 per cent)
It’s definitely all stitched up! Bill has more experience and knowledge and comes across as a leader! She definitely isn’t leader material 😂😂😂
I will be remaining in post Lois permitting in order to put the affairs of the sw region and hand over the agricultural brief as sadly I have stage 4 lung cancer which is past treatment
Guess we will never know the answer but I do wonder if this is vaccine related as I had no previous symptoms.
I am nothing if I do not respect democracy so whilst I supported Bill Etheridge but Lois got the votes so whilst I am able I will work with her.
Cancer doesn’t generally have ‘previous symptoms’ until you actually get cancer. The suggestion that lung cancer is ‘vaccine related’ just proves that UKIP has indeed been taken over by conspiracy nuts. I wonder if Bryant is a smoker. There may be some connection with cancer – or maybe the conspiracy nuts deny that smoking is the main cause of lung cancer.
Yes, Sonia, all left in the shell party are either grubby cheats like grifter Walker, or naive conspiracy nutters.
Treacherous “I am nothing” Pat Bryant smokes like a chimney. For decades she ignored advice and medical warnings to stop.
But, like with other crazy people, she knew better.
Zoom meant after climbing back on board she stopped attending N.E.C. meetings in person, a relief.
However, when Ms. Porton Down recently announced her news in local circles and it circulated, some of us were surprised. We had instead expected that her terribly insanitary addiction to licking the Arse of Mr. Cheat and Liar Neil Hamilton would be the official cause of her passing.
Knowing what she did about Walker, and the deepest contempt in which she held him, justice would have been well served if this worship of Walker’s partner in crime was what did for her……………….
Your correspondent obviously has very little knowledge of my situation. I gave up smoking for many years . I fell off the wagon the day I found my partner of 35 years dead. So you are stronger than me. Lucky you. As for conspiracy my oncologist actually posed vaccine question because I had recently had scans for something else which had revealed nothing abnormal. Comments were that they have seen fast growing tumours since vaccination. So swivel with you Ill informed Comments
well said Pat Briant and such firm denials too of these scoundrels Sonia and BAT.
But tellingly, no denial about your alleged opinion of Walker.
Then, you know there’s a recording out there from years ago of you making it no secret that you thought or knew Walker was a crook and a liar, surprised he wasn’t locked up.
You regretted others didn’t back former MEP Mike Hookem’s demand in 2019 that Walker be excluded from standing for any party position at all, not only leader or chairman, on the grounds of bringing the party into public disrespect and disgrace.
Not only the Walker Scandals that attracted publicity, but a few S.W. ones you knew about but which few others did. So what made you lose your way about him, Mrs Briant, or what attracted you to the smell of his A— ?
Also curious, how much was Bill’s appearance fee for pretending to stand as a candidate to give Walker’s new ladyship more street cred? How much do you cringe watching Her Bipolarity fluffing it, video after video?
I ask on behalf of others, without ill will.
Chin up, your oncologist sounds like a right plonker so she may be wrong about your prognosis too.
I stand corrected.
Instead, “Her Bipolarityness” is the correct honour for Mrs Hillgrove, your new pretend-boss.