TORQUAY, United Kingdom — The UK Independence Party announced Henry Bolton OBE as their new leader Friday afternoon, after 29.9 per cent of party members voted for the candidate.

The former British Army officer, Thames Valley police officer, and border control expert said in his acceptance speech that he wanted the UK to be a “nation that is proud to call itself British”.

Bolton was UKIP’s police and crime commissioner candidate in the Kent 2016 vote, and as a Liberal Democrat in the 2005 general election. He was awarded an OBE in 2013 for his “for services to international security and stabilisation” in Afghanistan.

Breitbart London was the first UK news outlet to use Bolton as a source, when he spoke on the porous nature of Britain’s maritime borders, and the importance of securing them in January 2017.

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage took to Twitter moments after the vote to congratulate Bolton, calling him a man of substance.

I am delighted @_HenryBolton has won the UKIP leadership election. He is a man of real substance. — Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) September 29, 2017

Other candidates standing in the leadership election achieved:

85 votes — Aidan Powlesland

566 — Jane Collins

1,413 — Peter Whittle

2,021 — John Rees-Evans

2,201 — David Kurten

2,755 — Anne Marie Waters

3,874 — Henry Bolton

The announcement, made during UKIP’s conference in Torquay in South West England comes after a difficult year for the party which has now seen four leaders since the independence referendum in 2016.

Newly elected leader Bolton takes the reigns as the party embarks on a broad relaunch and corporate rebrand. The familiar pound-sign logo for the party, which dated back to the days when Britain was considering abandoning sterling and joining the euro, has been ditched in favour of a new logo featuring a lion.

This new face for the party came in tandem with the launch of a new campaign to push for Brexit to actually happen, coming amidst an announcement by the prime minister in Florence last week that Britain would be kept in the Union for an extra two years, in the guise of a transition period.