LONDON — Arron Banks has a message to chill the blood of Eurocrats everywhere.

“We might well go continental with the whole thing,” said the millionaire British insurance salesman, one of the biggest donors to the United Kingdom Independence Party.

A close ally of outgoing party leader Nigel Farage, Banks speaks with a lazy insouciance that belies grand ambitions. His vision for the future — one that he shares with Farage — is for the Leave.EU movement which he founded to become a beacon for others across the Continent who have set their sights on shores beyond the Union.

Banks wants to see the populist, anti-elite, nativist message that secured Brexit go global.

“This message — that you can overturn the political establishment — travels well,” he told POLITICO.

Farage, who will step down as leader of UKIP at the party’s yearly conference later this week, is eyeing a future role as “roving ambassador,” according to Banks. “To go to places like Denmark and France and say: ‘It’s possible, you can do it as well.’ The economics of the EU are cracking at the seams. It’s very ripe for that kind of message,” he said.

By collaborating with like-minded movements in other countries, the group will seek to foment anti-EU feeling across the Continent. The populist Italian 5Star Movement is cited as a model by both Banks and Farage.

In July, after taking the Brexit gospel to Cleveland to speak at the Republican Convention, Farage told POLITICO he would soon be “traveling around Europe, helping other independence movements.” Soon after, he was buoyed by an ego-boosting appearance alongside Donald Trump in Mississippi, and sources close to Farage say he has received numerous invitations to advise political parties and campaign groups around Europe.

“We need a more data-driven approach to electioneering, a rigorous approach to candidate selection. And we need to be cheerful, offering a bright vision of the future rather than clinging to the past” — UKIP MP Douglas Carswell

Italy’s constitutional referendum later this year is the next opportunity for a “protest vote” against the European elite and the Leave.EU campaigners are gearing up to help secure a No vote, said Banks.

But for UKIP, whose self-defined mission was to get the U.K. out of the European Union, the victory may have been pyrrhic. As supporters gather Friday for the party conference on England’s south coast in Bournemouth — a seaside town that voted firmly for Leave — Brexit celebrations will be overshadowed by an identity crisis and internal divisions that threaten its long-term future.

Far from preparing for a grand European tour, some senior UKIP figures opposed to the Banks/Farage wing think the party needs to get its own house in order.

“I struggle to think of a partner organization in any country that would want our advice about elections after our result in the last general election,” said UKIP’s only MP, Douglas Carswell. “We should be taking theirs.”

In the last election, the party won just one Westminster seat, despite securing 13 percent of the popular vote. Carswell, who has clashed repeatedly with Farage, believes UKIP needs to introduce an entirely new, targeted strategy for elections.

“We need a more data-driven approach to electioneering, a rigorous approach to candidate selection. And we need to be cheerful, offering a bright vision of the future rather than clinging to the past,” he said.

Field of unknowns

East of England MEP Patrick O’Flynn, the party’s former economics spokesman who also fell out badly with Farage, similarly wants the party to stay focused on the U.K.

“The goal is to get us out of the EU and at the moment we are still in it,” he said. “At least until we leave, which could not be until 2019, it is our duty and our mission to get us out of the EU.

“Once that is achieved we need to decide what our animating mission is,” he said. “We are the party that forces other parties to confront issues they do not want to confront.” Such issues, O’Flynn believes, could include “the role of radical Islam in British society,” or challenging the government to slash Britain’s foreign aid spending.

Another issue for UKIP is succession, following a shambolic leadership race revealing a party in desperate need of reform. Tensions between Farage and his supporters and the ruling National Executive Committee burst out into the open when Farage’s favored successor, Steven Woolfe, was blocked from standing after handing in his application 17 minutes late. Other leading lights of the party had shied away from competing for the leadership post or, in the case of MEP Suzanne Evans, had been unable to do so after being suspended following clashes with Farage.

The result has been a largely unknown field of candidates. In a poll by BMG Research, eight out of 10 voters hadn’t heard of any of them. South East England MEP Diane James, considered to be the leading contender, is thought to be Farage’s new choice.

Banks, meanwhile, has spoken openly of his ambition to create a new political movement, or even a party, from the nearly one million supporters of Leave.EU to ride the Brexit wave. If James wins, the movement will be aligned or affiliated with UKIP, Banks said. If not, he suggested it might strike out alone, outflanking the party and possibly taking Farage with it.

The new movement would be strongly driven by social media and unafraid to push the boundaries of traditional political discourse, said Banks, who accompanied Farage to Mississippi and is open about his wish to emulate the success of the Trump campaign.

“The appetite is there for that kind of politics,” he said. “This doesn’t mean [the new movement] will replace UKIP. But what happens ... is dependent on the result of the [leadership election]. Nigel is almost irreplaceable. Whoever takes over, it’s going to be an uphill battle. If Diane James wins, we’ve got a future.”

‘Party of England’

The new movement, which will also draw inspiration from Momentum, a grassroots campaign that secures Jeremy Corbyn’s support among the Labour membership, will not be launched until the U.K. political party conference season is over next month. “Then we’re going to start thinking about it,” Banks said. “Leave.EU has not stopped growing.”

Voters are much more Euroskeptic than governments around Europe acknowledge, he said.

“We saw that with the Westminster elite. They had no concept that three million people who had never voted in their lives would come out and vote. It mobilizes people in a way that normal politics doesn’t.”

“All they have to do is get the right leader in place and they become the party of England” — Senior Labour MP

Domestically, some see a big political opportunity for UKIP as well. The Conservatives, who have to negotiate a painful divorce from the EU that is bound to disappoint some voters, are clinging on to a wafer-thin majority, and the Labour opposition is mired in what is effectively a civil war. The fact that Labour also appears out of step with voters in its northern heartlands who backed Brexit could be an enormous opportunity for UKIP, as even UKIP’s opponents say.

“All they have to do is get the right leader in place and they become the party of England,” said one senior Labour MP in the north of England, who believes the consequences of UKIP’s rise are potentially catastrophic for his party.

The direction the party takes will become clearer in Bournemouth on Friday when the new leader is announced. James is expected to beat the candidate favored by O’Flynn and Evans, Cambridgeshire councillor Lisa Duffy. Even then much will depend on whether Farage, who for years has run UKIP as a one-man band, can cope with relinquishing the reins of the party.

One party source close to the outgoing leader said that, with the glamour of his new international focus, Farage would have no trouble.

“He is absolutely delighted not to have his hand on the tiller anymore … he’s always hated the party management aspects of being leader,” the source said, adding that invitations have flowed in from Europe and even non-EU countries such as Australia, New Zealand, China and Japan. “I don’t know if he’s taken them all up, but you name it, people want to hear from him.

“He’s going to have fun.”