As the members, supporters and voters of UKIP, we the undersigned stand united behind Nigel Farage as the leader of our party and believe that he is unequivocally the best man or woman to lead the campaign for Britain to leave the EU in the upcoming referendum.

We believe a leadership contest to be wholly unnecessary and deem it as a waste of both time and money, considering the current proposed date of May 2016 for the EU referendum. Taking this into account, we fully support the NEC's decision to unanimously reject Nigel Farage's resignation as leader.

We feel that recent public stands against Nigel (or those that have been perceived as such by the media) do not speak for nor represent the views of the 4 million that voted for UKIP in the General Election. We ask that all such matters be dealt with internally within the party and do not condone the actions of anyone who chooses to publicly undermine the leader of UKIP, nor those whose words call into question our position as a serious and professional political party.

EDIT: P.S. Nigel please please take your family on holiday and go relax for a little while. I'm sure we can all be kept busy enough for a week to not notice.