Ukip is facing potential takeover by far-right forces after a large number of new members joined in an apparent attempt to back a leadership candidate who has described Islam as “evil”, party sources have said.

With the race to take over from Paul Nuttall wide open after Nigel Farage announced he would not stand again, sources say the arrival of about 1,000 new members in two weeks has sparked fears of “infiltration” by supporters of Anne Marie Waters.

With little more than 15,000 votes in total cast when Nuttall won the leadership last November, some within Ukip fear it would not take many more new members to potentially push a tight race Waters’s way.

One Ukip source said: “It’s possible that in a multi-horse race without a favourite, an election would be won with 5,000 votes. So 1,000 new members in just two weeks is potentially a fair way towards distorting the result.”

If Waters did win it would most likely see the end of Ukip – the UK’s third-biggest party by votes cast in the 2015 election – as a mainstream political force.

Waters stood for Ukip in the Lewisham East constituency in 2015 but was prevented from doing so at the June election following concerns about her views on Islam, which she has described as “evil”.

However, she remains a party member, and some in Ukip believe it could be difficult to expel or suspend Waters now she is standing for leader. She was deputy leader of the UK arm of Pegida, the far-right and anti-Islam group, and has praised Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s Front National, and Geert Wilders, head of the Freedom party in the Netherlands.

Waters has described Islam as “an expansionist, political, totalitarian and supremacist faith, commanded to world domination” and said people are wary of the religion because they fear their children will be abused.

After Nuttall quit following a hugely disappointing general election result for Ukip, there had been intense speculation about whether Farage would return again amid a lack of other well-known figures. But writing in the Telegraph to explain why he was not standing, the former leader said the party needed “serious reforms”.



On Saturday, Waters formally launched her leadership bid in Rotherham, a location chosen because of its association with the long-running scandal of girls abused by men predominantly from Pakistani-British backgrounds.

The event took place at a secret venue after the original choice cancelled Waters’s booking on the advice of local police. Ukip took the unusual step of advising its local members not to attend the launch, saying the party did not endorse Waters’s views.

Nominations close later this month, with Nuttall’s successor chosen by a direct vote of members ahead of the party conference in late September.

Ukip has a policy of not permitting members who were formerly in far-right groups. However, the sources say, it is very hard to weed out such people, especially those linked to the English Defence League, an informal anti-Muslim street protest group.

One source said: “If Anne Marie Waters were to win then how would the party be distinguishable from the BNP or EDL? If it happened you’d see mass resignations. That’s no great secret.”

Other possible candidates include David Coburn, a Ukip MEP in Scotland, and Bill Etheridge, a West Midlands MEP who had said he would stand aside if Farage entered the race.

Definitely standing is Peter Whittle, a London assembly member whose platform is also largely based around Islam. While less extreme than Waters, Whittle has talked of the party becoming a patriotic “cultural movement”.

Whittle was the architect of the party’s set of policies for the June election focused on Islam, including a proposed ban on women wearing the niqab in public.

Another figure in the party said even Whittle would prove to be a hugely divisive leader, saying: “If you look into the integration agenda that was so catastrophic for our party, it was him. His whole purpose in politics is this one issue of Islam.”

Another was more circumspect, saying: “I think people would give him a chance, but you’d have a number who would be very, very wary. He would have a lot to prove. It would still being huge questions for the future of the party, but I don’t think you’d see the instant ripping up of membership cards.”

With Farage gone, the leadership election – Ukip’s third in a year after Nuttall’s predecessor, Diane James, resigned following just 18 days in the job – seems set to cause more turmoil for a party that saw its near-4-million vote tally of 2015 plummet to under 600,000.

With Ukip’s primary founding aim of a robust Brexit now supported by both the Conservatives and Labour, those vying to chart its future are broadly split between Farage-ist economic libertarians and the more hard-right, Islam-focused approach of Waters and Whittle.

Etheridge said he would most likely stay in the race to represent the former, unless a candidate of similar views emerged who looked more likely to win. But he said: “It’s a turning point. Whichever side wins, the other side won’t have a future in the party.”