Candidate Henry Bolton says party could ‘easily slip towards ideals of national socialism’ depending on who it chooses

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

One of the favourites to become Ukip’s next leader has warned it could become the “UK Nazi party” if it selects the wrong candidate to succeed Paul Nuttall.

Henry Bolton, a former army and police officer who claims the backing of Nigel Farage, said that the party could “easily slip towards the ideals of national socialism”.

Bolton, who warned last week against what he termed “the dominating rise of Islam in our country”, did not specify which of his opponents he was referring to.

However, the comments seem primarily aimed at Anne Marie Waters, an anti-Muslim activist who has close links to the far right and has described Islam as “evil”.

Bolton, a former candidate for Kent’s police and crime commissioner, also took aim at what he described as “Islam bashing” under Nuttall’s leadership, which saw Ukip policies at the June election include a ban on full-face veils in public for Muslim women.

These policies, described as an “integration agenda”, were the brainchild of Peter Whittle, a Ukip London assembly leader who is another prominent candidate in the battle to become the new party leader, with a decision due at the end of the month.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Leadership candidate Peter Whittle is also focusing on Islam. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

Bolton said: “I genuinely fear the election of the wrong Ukip leader could have serious ramifications for the country.”

“The clear majority of the members I know joined the party due to its fearlessness in tackling the real issue that mattered to the man on the street. However, under the wrong leadership, we could see a swing away from our traditional, secular values and stances towards something far darker.”

Targeting any particular group was wrong, Bolton said, and “very reminiscent of the policies invoked under both fascist and communist regimes during the 20th century”, and could lead to persecution.

He continued: “Frankly, seeking to blame one section of our community for society’s ills is not patriotism; it’s a form of totalitarianism that goes against everything Ukip as a political force has ever achieved.”



Waters has proved a deeply divisive figure in Ukip, and was barred from standing for the party at this year’s election because of her opinions.

She was deputy leader of the UK arm of Pegida, the far-right anti-Islam group, has praised Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, and described Islam as “an expansionist, political, totalitarian and supremacist faith, commanded to world domination”.

Waters’s campaign is being assisted by Jack Buckby, a far-right former member of BNP. Buckby was also a candidate for anti-immigration party Liberty GB contesting the 2016 Batley and Spen byelection triggered by the murder of Jo Cox by a far-right terrorist.

Almost all of Ukip’s 20 MEPs have said they would quit the party if Waters won.

Whittle’s focus on Islam as part of what he terms a patriotic “national revival” has also raised disquiet among some in Ukip, with several senior figures predicting the party could also split if he won.

Other candidates have similarly robust views about Islam. Another favourite, John Rees-Evans, has warned what he said was “an insidious growth in the influence and effect of Islam on Britain” and believes there are parts of London where police never go “for fear of their lives”.

At a hustings event in Gillingham, Kent last week, Bolton used similar language. While he warned anti-Islam policies should not be Ukip’s “main thrust”, he spoke of the issue as being a priority.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Anne Marie Waters was barred from standing for Ukip in the last general election. Photograph: News Agen//REX/Shutterstock

“One of those common themes is, indeed, the dominating rise of Islam in our country,” he told the audience.

“It is a thing that concerns people because they see their identity, their way of life, their British culture being eroded. There are concerns over the rule of law and effective policing.”



Ballot papers are currently being sent in an election seen as too close to call. Aside from Bolton, Waters, Whittle and Rees-Evans, two other candidates are seen as in with a chance of winning – MEP Jane Collins and London Assembly member David Kurten.

The final hopeful, Aidan Powlesland, whose main claim to fame was proposing at June’s election that the UK finance Brexit by mining the asteroid belt, is seen as an outsider.