Former deputy moves to distance himself from Nigel Farage and reposition party as ‘party of common sense’

The new leader of Ukip, Paul Nuttall, has said he plans to shift the party in a different direction from Nigel Farage and would not seek to copy his predecessor’s cosy chats with Donald Trump but instead focus on winning over former Labour voters.

“I want to make it perfectly clear: this leader of Ukip is not going to involve himself in foreign elections, period,” Nuttall told reporters after winning just under 63% of members’ votes to replace Farage. “My focus is here, in the United Kingdom, on winning council seats and on getting Ukip backsides on the green leather of the House of Commons.” He added: “I am my own man. I will be completely different to Nigel.”

Addressing a crowd of supporters in central London after the result was announced, Nuttall said his main goal was to target voters in the former Labour heartlands, arguing that the party under Jeremy Corbyn was more interested in “dinner party” topics such as climate change and fair trade than immigration, crime and social mobility.

Nuttall said: “My ambition is not insignificant: I want to replace the Labour party and make Ukip the patriotic voice of working people.”

The 39-year-old has in the past expressed some robust views on crime, abortion and the need for privatisation within the NHS. But after easily seeing off Suzanne Evans, his main rival to become Ukip’s third leader in little more than two months, Nuttall said he wanted to both unify the organisation after a period of chaos and division, and reposition it as “the party of common sense”.



'This will be a new Ukip': Paul Nuttall aims to take party beyond Brexit Read more

Nuttall had been heavily tipped to win, but the margin of his victory was unexpectedly large. He took 62.6% of the 15,405 votes cast. Evans, Ukip’s former deputy chair, won 19.3%, only 198 votes more than little-known outsider John Rees-Evans.

Nuttall, MEP for North-West England, takes over from Farage, who had returned briefly as interim leader in October when his chosen replacement, Diane James, stepped down after just 18 days in the job, citing a lack of internal party support.

Nuttall said it was “absolutely realistic” for the party to target a vote share of between 26% and 30% – it is currently on about 12% – and aim for more than 10 parliamentary seats at the 2020 general election.

This would be done, he said, by targeting resources on areas where Ukip has councillors, rather than what he called its former “scattergun approach”. He also promised to being back party unity, with overtures to both Evans and the party’s sole MP, Douglas Carswell.

Nuttall, who went to a state school in Bootle, Merseyside, is seen as more appealing to Labour voters in the north than Farage, a privately educated former commodities trader. However, a number of Nuttall’s own opinions will attract some scrutiny, including a now deleted post on his website that praised the then government for “bringing a whiff of privatisation” to the NHS.

Nuttall says he supports the NHS as it is, but the Labour MP Jon Trickett responded to Nuttall’s election by saying Ukip had “sent a clear message that they pose a threat to our NHS”.

Nuttall also supports a referendum on the death penalty for people who kill children, an end to foreign aid, and a ban on the face-covering niqab for Muslim women. He has talked about seeking restrictions to abortion rights and questioned the reality of global warming.



The new Ukip leader’s other focus will be the Conservatives, with Nuttall promising to pursue the government over a full departure from the EU. “If we don’t get real Brexit, and if we continue to have freedom of movement and we’re not allowed to sign our own trade deals and we still have to pay a membership fee to Brussels, and we still have to comply with EU regulations and directives – ie we stay in the single market – then I’m afraid that is a betrayal,” he said.



In recent weeks Farage has spent much time and effort involved in US politics, speaking for Donald Trump before the presidential election and famously becoming the first UK politician to meet the US president-elect.



Making a valedictory address to the Ukip faithful before the leadership announcement, Farage appeared to argue that his work on Brexit had helped bring about Trump’s win. “In this amazing, transformative and in many ways revolutionary year of 2016, it is Brexit that directly led to the establishment being defeated on 8 November and Donald J Trump being about to take up the presidency,” he said.

New Ukip leader poses threat to Labour and the Tories Read more

Nuttall was at pains to distance himself from Farage, saying he was hopeful about Trump’s “anglophile” beliefs, but condemning as “appalling” some of the comments made by Trump on the campaign trail.

“I wouldn’t personally cosy up to him, no,” said Nuttall. However, he did say he would put up Farage for a peerage, if this was offered to the party, and wanted him to remain “front of house” as a regular media presence.

Nuttall must now seek to unify a party riven by splits, which saw Evans – who has offered her full support to Nuttall – barred from standing in the last leadership election, and the initial favourite for this one, Steven Woolfe, pull out after a much publicised brawl with fellow MEP Mike Hookem.

News of the altercation, Nuttall said, left him “with my head in my hands, looking through my fingers”, and prompted him to stand as leader.

Nuttall in his own words

“I would like to congratulate the coalition government for bringing a whiff of privatisation into the beleaguered National Health Service. I would argue that the very existence of the NHS stifles competition” – post on Nuttall’s blog, now deleted

“Have you noticed that the ‘alarmists’ don’t call it global warming any more? No, they call it climate change, but only because their ‘hair-brained’ [sic] theory of global warming has fallen on its backside quicker than I did today when I slipped on the ice in Liverpool” – 2010 post on Nuttall’s blog

“You can’t walk into a bank wearing a crash helmet or balaclava – it is so CCTV cameras can clearly identify you. This is a security issue. Why should people wearing face veils be exempt from these concerns?” – comment made during the Ukip leadership campaign

“I don’t think that the kind of people who live in these areas will sign up to the kind of Labour party that Jeremy Corbyn leads, and will be interested in the kinds of things Jeremy Corbyn talks about” – to reporters, after his win

“There’s something going on in the continent of Europe. There’s an anti-establishment feel, which is growing, right across the rest of the world. And I want Ukip to be that vehicle here in the UK” – to reporters, after his win.



