The Greens have named Caroline Lucas and Jonathan Bartley as their co-leaders, Labour will announce there’s soon and now UKIP have named Diane James as their newly elected Party Leader.
UK politics has officially been ‘re-designed’ post voting to exit from the EU, with a completely new direction as to where the UK goes and how it’s governed.
The news of Diane James’ victory for UKIP leadership came yesterday at UKIP’s party conference yesterday.
Below outlines the results:
| Diane James | 8,451 |
| Lisa Duffy | 4,591 |
| Bill Etheridge | 2,052 |
| Phillip Broughton | 1,544 |
| Elizabeth Jones | 1,203 |
Source: BBC 2016
New leader Diane James, a prominent Vote Leave campaigner, stated in her opening speech that the Prime Minster Theresa May has to “get on with getting the UK out of the EU”.
Ms James had been strongly regarded as the favourite to succeed Nigel Farage, who has quit as it’s leader following the UK’s vote to leave the EU. He feels that his ‘job is done’ and he has ‘given his all to the party’.
MEP Ms James, won with 8,451 votes, ahead of Lisa Duffy in 2nd, who received 4,591.
She said UKIP was “the opposition party in waiting” and said the Tories “cannot be trusted with true Brexit”.
“The threats to the referendum outcome are increasing by the day,” she said, adding she would reject “Brexit-lite”.
UKIP is known to now be the ‘face of UK Euroscepticism’ for nearly two decades. Mr Farage bows out by helping turn UKIP from a fringe party, into one of the biggest parties in UK politics – in terms of votes at the 2015 general election. He also independently helped towards persuading more than 17 million people to vote to leave the EU.
Ms James further said that UKIP had “moved mountains on the political landscape” and was the “change movement of the United Kingdom”. She quotes: “I believe in UKIP’s values of liberty, common sense, democracy and pragmatic approaches to the challenges this country faces.”
She ended by telling the party conference that she might use ‘different language’ and be ‘less frank’ than Mr Farage, but she would be honest and “uphold all the beliefs and values that this party stands for”.
When directing this at the Prime Minister, she said: “If you’re watching this afternoon, you’ll be watching the opposition party in waiting.”
What do you make of UKIP’s newly elected leader Diane James?
Will she hold the government into account for Brexit? Will she be a good leader for UKIP? What will she put onto the table for UK politics in the ear of Article 50 and Brexit?
Comment your views on Diane James and UKIP below
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