The insurance millionaire and former Ukip donor Arron Banks has said he could patch up his differences with the party in order to try to unseat Douglas Carswell, who quit the party last month.

Banks, who also left the party in March, is expected to meet Nigel Farage and party officials on Wednesday to discuss whether he should stand for Ukip against Carswell in Clacton in the 8 June general election Theresa May has called for.

Banks’s spokesman said he had promised to launch his campaign in the Essex coastal town on Thursday whether or not he was adopted as the party’s candidate.

Carswell, the former Conservative MP who left Ukip to sit as an independent, has said he will stand again. Giles Watling, who stood for the Conservatives in the 2015 election, has said he also wants to run, potentially setting up a close three-way fight.

Banks, who previously bankrolled the Leave.EU campaign as well as Ukip, had intended to launch his own political movement, the Patriotic Alliance, on 5 May.

He said he wanted to put up several hundred candidates against anti-Brexit MPs to “drain the swamp” at Westminster of what he considered careerist politicians. But May’s decision to call for a general election has come too soon as he does not have a list of candidates in place.

“Whether Banks stands as an independent, Patriotic Alliance or Ukip, those things are all up for discussion,” said Andy Wigmore, Banks’s spokesman. “We were due to launch it on 5 May, but events supersede everything. We will just concentrate on the Clacton swamp. Make Clacton great.”



The uncertainty illustrates the many challenges facing Ukip, which entered the 2015 general election polling strongly, with two MPs and harbouring real hopes of adding to the tally.

While the party’s poll ratings have not plummeted as with Labour – they are currently near to 11%, as against the 12.9% election result – it faces a fight against the electoral system, but also to maintain a voice and role.

While in 2015 the party took only Carswell’s seat – Mark Reckless, another former Conservative MP, lost and Farage failed to take Thanet South – the party’s near 4m votes arguably helped push the UK towards the EU exit door in the referendum.

Now the party has no MPs and faces a tricky fight in its former stronghold of Clacton, as well as accusations it has no purpose after Brexit, a point Carswell made after the general election announcement.

If you voted Ukip in 2015, it's job done — Douglas Carswell (@DouglasCarswell) April 18, 2017

The party’s leader, Paul Nuttall, failed in his attempt to become an MP in February in the Stoke Central byelection, and it is not clear where he will stand this time.

Nuttall called May’s move for the 8 June poll “a cynical decision” based on Labour’s weakness, but added: “We welcome the opportunity to take Ukip’s positive message to the country.

“We are in the midst of Brexit negotiations so this election will provide a perfect opportunity for the 52% to vote for Ukip, the only party wholeheartedly committed to a clean, quick and efficient Brexit.”

It is unclear what role, if any, Farage will play, with the former leader now devoting much of his time to US political punditry.

If Banks does recommit to Ukip, he is ready to give the party access to the social media campaign team at his Bristol insurance offices that proved influential during the EU referendum campaign.

Following advice from the US-based social media strategists Cambridge Analytica, who also advised Donald Trump, Banks claims to have developed his own algorithms for targeting voters with tailored messages through social media platforms, in particular Facebook.

But he said he wanted Ukip to consider only putting up candidates against MPs opposed to Brexit.

“What we might say to Ukip is, what you should do is not put candidates up against strong Brexit candidates whether they be Labour, Lib Dem or Tory and focus on the MPs that are anti-Brexit,” said Wigmore. “In that case the machine that we have got helps massively.”