Ukip leader Bolton suffers further blow after girlfriend furore
The leader of the UK Independence party has suffered a further blow to his credibility, after admitting that he will have to sell his flat to settle outstanding service charges.
Henry Bolton is already facing calls to resign over an affair with a 25-year-old model who made racist comments. His financial position has been questioned since he was elected leader of the anti-EU party last September. The role of leader is unpaid, and Mr Bolton has no other salary.
A person familiar with Mr Bolton’s property in Folkestone, Kent, said that the Ukip leader had refused to pay approximately £28,000 service charges for more than a year. “Everyone in the building knows it,” the person said.
Ukip said Mr Bolton would now sell the flat and use some of the proceeds to “pay the outstanding charge”. “He is in communication with the management agent on this matter,” the spokesman said.
On Monday Mr Bolton also announced he had ended the “romantic element” of his relationship with Jo Marney, a model and Ukip member, who made offensive comments about Meghan Markle, Prince Harry’s fiancée.
But the move did not satisfy some of his critics within Ukip: Bill Etheridge, an MEP, resigned as the party’s sports spokesman, and reiterated his call for Mr Bolton to resign.
Mr Bolton’s difficulties are the latest to afflict Ukip, which has struggled for coherence since the Brexit vote. The party has had two leadership elections within the past 18 months. Its former leader, Nigel Farage, contradicted the party’s line on Brexit last week, saying that a second referendum might be necessary.
Mr Bolton, who has never been elected to public office, remained little known until news of his affair broke. He has claimed that his enemies within Ukip are using his affair to undermine his leadership. Some Ukip members have complained they were unaware about Mr Bolton’s past as a member of the Liberal Democrats, before his election in September.
Mr Bolton has previously worked as a security consultant. When elected in September, he said there were “various ways that I will have to look at my income”.
Internal divisions, visible under Mr Farage’s leadership, have deepened since his resignation in July 2016. Diane James, an MEP elected leader, resigned after just 18 days in post, blaming internal opposition. Paul Nuttall, her successor, quit after the 2017 general election, and has been heavily criticised for focusing the party on the question of Islamic integration.
Mr Bolton’s election was greeted with relief by many senior figures, including Mr Farage, who feared the party would face extinction if a rival candidate, the anti-Islam campaigner Anne Marie Waters, won.
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