One of Ukip’s biggest donors, Arron Banks, has confirmed he has a “problem” with the party’s remaining leadership candidates and hinted that Nigel Farage could return for another stint as leader.

Banks, who founded the Leave.EU campaign and donated £1m to Ukip, confirmed he would stop funding the party because he had no confidence in the four leadership candidates to end the infighting in the party and maintain its radicalism.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he suggested that he would bankroll the party again if Farage returned.

“Nigel was probably a dominant politician of the last 20 or 30 years and losing him has caused the pressure cooker to explode,” Banks said. Later, discussing the party’s future, he added: “It is whether Nigel stays engaged in it or not.”



And asked if he wanted Farage to return, Banks said: “I think at some point he may do. He has gone on record as saying if Mrs May doesn’t deliver Brexit then he’ll be back. It is a threat enough maybe for them to get on with it.”

After Farage stood down as leader, Banks first backed Diane James as his replacement. When she quit the leadership 18 days after being elected, he then backed Steven Woolfe, who left the party after a fight with a fellow MEP, Banks then backed Raheem Kassam, who pulled out of the race over the weekend.

Banks predicted that Ukip’s former deputy leader Paul Nuttall would win the leadership contest but said he lacked authority and vision.

He said: “There has to be a clearout of certain people within the party that have caused a hell of a lot of problems and I doubt whether he has got the steel to do it.”

He added: “At the moment I’m struggling with the candidates on offer ... It has got to get its mojo back. It has got to be radical and it has got to be anti-establishment and my problem with all of the candidates at the moment is that they seemingly want to push it to the centre, which seems a ludicrous place for it to be.

“It has to be something different. I’m sitting on the fence until it emerges.”