I was extremely disappointed when I heard Diane James had decided to step down from the Ukip leadership so soon after her decisive win in the party elections. She really wanted to build on the foundations laid by Nigel Farage, to professionalise our operation and make sure someone was standing ready to hold the Tories to account on Brexit – God knows the regular opposition aren’t up to the job, even if they wanted to do it.

Nigel Farage declares himself interim Ukip leader Read more

But the Ukip leadership is a heavy cross for anyone to carry, and not everyone can bear it. James was shocked, I think, at the level of venom directed at her. One intolerant leftist jeered and spat at her at Waterloo station. This thuggish behaviour should be completely beyond the pale after the Jo Cox tragedy, but because James is “rightwing”, the media turns a blind eye. On top of this, she ran into a brick wall trying to tackle the fifth column within Ukip, which wants to frustrate any attempts at reform.

Farage had to fight an extremely draining two-front war against these opportunist carpetbaggers during the referendum, as they sought to seize control of the party he built up from nothing while he was out winning the campaign.

Led by Douglas Carswell and Suzanne Evans, this cabal would utterly destroy Ukip. Yet they have reaped huge benefits from courting the party’s outdated national executive committee. This body is populated by a motley collection of amateurs; leftovers from a bygone age, when Ukip was a ragtag band of volunteers on the fringes of British politics. Watching them try to run the modern political movement that Farage built is like watching a team of circus clowns trying to carry out a pit stop at the Silverstone Grand Prix.

Yet the old constitution gives them power, and Carswell and Evans have lavished them with attention. They found a useful creature in the absurd figure of Neil Hamilton, a relic from the dregs of the Tory party best known for the “cash for questions” scandal and exactly the sort of representative Ukip doesn’t need.

These people would be out of their depth in a paddling pool, and couldn’t be more unfit to run a modern political party

The committee’s selfish, shortsighted ambition was encapsulated in its exclusion of Steven Woolfe from the leadership race, ostensibly on the technical basis of some papers being submitted through their ancient computer system 17 minutes late. This was bureaucratic meddling worthy of Brussels itself.

If James hadn’t put her name forward at the last minute, we would have had nothing but a rabble of no-name, no-talent nobodies to choose from. These people would be out of their depth in a paddling pool, and couldn’t be more unfit to run a modern political party. Perhaps James could have seen them off, but with the strain of being a hate figure and with a seriously ill partner to care for, who can blame her for deciding to step away?

It isn’t too late. The Labour leadership elections proved the party is incapable of becoming a credible opposition. Ukip is now the only force in British politics that can represent the millions of working-class voters who don’t want to see backsliding on Brexit. Corbyn’s Labour doesn’t represent these people – it doesn’t even like them.

Theresa May, who backed remain during the referendum and endorsed a status quo which has been failing working-class communities badly, has enjoyed a boost in the polls because she hastily adopted a series of popular Ukip policies on things such as grammar schools and national security. I don’t think she can be trusted to deliver them. The Tories are fundamentally the same people with the same elitist agenda.

Diane James resigns as Ukip leader after only 18 days in role Read more

Ukip has an opportunity to reinvent itself too now, as a truly 21st-century movement along the same lines as the Five Star movement in Italy. Woolfe will get another chance to run for the leadership, with a mandate to sweep aside the hopeless national executive committee and boot out Carswell – the quicker he goes, the better. Woolfe, a working-class boy from the north, is better positioned than anyone to help Ukip displace Labour as the party that stands up for ordinary people, believes in Britain and fights for the national interest.

Ukip in chaos? Ukip redundant? Not on your life – this is just the beginning.