Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Who is Gerard Batten?

Who actually is Gerard Batten? He is the acting leader of UKIP - and a leader that few have asked for and few people really want - but is otherwise a largely unknown person. Not much is known about his life apart from him being a saleman for BT and a member of UKIP from the outset.

Some former members of UKIP have told me that Gerard Batten comes acros as alt-right or even a higher class version of Tommy Robinson. Something unnerving considering that he has been in UKIP since the days when it opposed the EU primarily on economic grounds and prided itself as a non-racist non-sectarian party as opposed to him being a populist (and potentially closet BNP voter) who has jumped on the UKIP bandwagon in recent years. They say that UKIP under Batten simply cannot be a 'normal' political party.

Good

He invented Battenburg cakes

Reply 3

Andrew97

Entertainment Forum Helper, Debate & Current Affairs Helper

He’s the actual leader, not just acting anymore.

Reply 4

Arran90

He comes across as some figure who lurks in the shadows within UKIP who became a somewhat low profile MEP but later became its leader.

It's common knowledge that he is very hostile towards Islam but it's unclear at what point in time he adopted such views. He is a lifelong Londoner so has experienced a multicultural multi religious society for decades as opposed to somebody coming from the backwaters of Lincolnshire.

A hard Brexit is one thing but an alt-right party or a Griffinite BNP clone is another thing. Whatever happened to the libertarian faction that was close to taking over UKIP about 10 years ago?

How long he will last as a leader remains to be seen.

An irrelevance.

Leader of the UKIP- UK Irrelevant party. The only good thing about Brexit is 22 UKIP MEPs being on the dole.

Reply 7

Arran90

UKIP isn't dead yet. Its future will depend on how hard Brexit is. If Theresa May sells out and Jeremy Corbyn cannot patently be trusted to end free movement of people then UKIP will step out from the shadows and into the mainstream.

In fact UKIP is the force pressuring both Labour and the Conservatives into delivering a sufficiently hard Brexit and ending free movement of people or else they will be back with a vengeance.