LONDON — The United Kingdom Independence Party is in crisis — and no one's surprised.

When Diane James announced late Tuesday that she was stepping down as leader after just 18 days — citing a combination of personal reasons and lack of "sufficient authority" — she became the Euroskeptic party's eighth leader in its 20-year history. Who was there to step into the fold? Nigel Farage of course. “I keep trying to escape,” he said. “But before I’m finally free, they drag me back.”

It leaves UKIP facing a triple-whammy of problems: a lack of money, falling membership and a total absence of competent leadership. What it does next will decide if the party thrives or dies.

The roots of the current crisis stretch back to the fumbled leadership contest that distracted UKIP for much of the summer. When Farage announced his departure after the Brexit vote, the stage was set for a battle between those who remained loyal to UKIP’s charismatic talisman and those who had come to view him as a liability.

The fight was never really about ideology, but personality. And it was nasty, with some senior figures painted as paranoid and dogmatic control freaks and others charged with hijacking UKIP for the benefit of the Conservative Party.

When it looked as though Farage’s more prominent critics such as Suzanne Evans — a former deputy chairwoman and Farage ally who was suspended from the party for suspected disloyalty — might try to stand for the leadership they were effectively barred from doing so, leading them to line up instead behind a largely unknown local councillor.

After Farage’s preferred successor, the MEP Steven Woolfe, was ruled out of the running after failing to submit his nomination papers on time, the Farageists turned instead to James. She won, showing how much in UKIP is driven by Farage, whether he's party leader or not. By Wednesday evening, Woolfe had thrown his hat back into the leadership ring.

The new era would be short-lived. Before her election success, James’ absence from the campaign trail led some to ask whether she really wanted the role. After she won, senior activists began to question whether she had what it takes to lead — something that any other party might have explored in advance.

During an interview I conducted a week after her election, one senior activist openly questioned whether James would be able to withstand the pressure that accompanied leading Britain’s third most popular party, according to opinion polls.

James herself was clearly frustrated to discover it would be almost impossible to push through internal reforms that she had promised during the leadership hustings, such as abolishing the executive body.

“Whoever put her up to standing for the leadership promised her all sorts of powers that could not be delivered" — Senior UKIP source

“She had been led up the garden path,” said one senior UKIP source. “Whoever put her up to standing for the leadership promised her all sorts of powers that could not be delivered. They simply did not understand how UKIP worked.”

There are also reports that her willingness to work with those who had fallen foul of Farage, notably former Conservative MP Neil Hamilton, lost her the support of senior Farageists such as Arron Banks, the multimillionaire donor who bankrolled the Brexit campaign.

At a crossroads

Where does UKIP go next? There are different schools of thought within the party. Some argue for yet another leadership contest, one that is open to all — including those such as Evans who are in exile. As one senior UKIP member said: "It is now time to have a proper leadership election where everybody who is a member of good standing is able to stand. We need to get over all of this and move on.”

With Farage having ruled himself out of the running (and I for one believe him), Woolfe will be a strong contender likely alongside Evans, although the latter would likely struggle to attract enough support among party members.

The most important person to watch is Paul Nuttall, an MEP and former deputy to Farage who was one of the first in UKIP to argue that it should be spending as much time targeting traditional Labour territory as Conservative shires.

Nuttall, who at the party conference made an impassioned plea for unity, ruled himself out of the most recent contest. But he is incredibly popular among rank-and-file members, fellow MEPs, and the older generation of activists. If Nuttall stood he would probably win.

An outside possibility is that Banks decides that UKIP is a busted flush and pushes on with his plan to establish a "right-wing Momentum" — a version of the left-wing activist group that has helped keep Jeremy Corbyn in office. Banks has said he would like to create a version of Italy's anti-establishment 5Star Movement.

Banks certainly has the money to do that, but not everyone in UKIP would follow him and some senior figures are dismissive of the plan, with one saying: "Any attempt to start a movement will fail within a year. This is not Italy: this is Britain where the electoral system is entirely different. It has taken UKIP 20 years to build brand recognition and we still struggled to win seats. Banks is all talk."

Whatever direction UKIP takes, the party faces huge challenges in post-referendum Britain. Its membership has plummeted, with many donors returning to the Conservative fold.

Then there is the infighting; UKIP is riven from top to bottom by bitter personality disputes. Farage has fallen out with the party's only member of parliament Douglas Carswell as well as Suzanne Evans and Neil Hamilton, several UKIP MEPs have fallen out with Nigel Farage; the London office has fallen out with the Welsh office ...

There also remain big differences about future strategy. While some argue that UKIP should focus on making sure the Conservative Party keeps its word on Brexit, others like Nuttall argue that the party should shift gear entirely and focus on Labour heartlands. There is no consensus. Nor are there many immediate opportunities to make electoral gains; a coming by-election to take over David Cameron's seat will almost certainly be won by the Tories.

May's Britain

Then there is the biggest obstacle of all — Theresa May. Since becoming prime minister, May — and more specifically her main advisor Nick Timothy — have been parking Conservative tanks on UKIP's lawn.

Whereas UKIP previously enjoyed defections from the Conservatives, the tide might now start going the other way.

Timothy has a keen understanding of UKIP, having studied the rise of the party. May’s plans for more selective schools, her acknowledgement that immigration controls must be central to any future deal with the EU, her relentless focus on "ordinary, working-class families," sharp critique of an out-of-touch liberal elite; it's all straight out of the Farage playbook.

This means that whereas UKIP previously enjoyed defections from the Conservatives, the tide might now start going the other way. Several prominent UKIP activists have already defected back to the Conservatives and the longer-term threat is not lost on its senior party members. "There are big problems. We know that. We have to defend over 100 local seats next year and many might be lost to the Conservatives,” one said.

Next year's local elections do pose a particular challenge for UKIP, not least because they will mainly be held in southern Tory areas that are incredibly receptive to the more traditionalist Conservative message preached by May.

UKIP is averaging about 10 percent support in opinion polls, but around half of that number comes from ex-Conservatives. Based on my calculations, if May and her team are able to win back half of the 13 percent that went to UKIP at the 2015 general election, then upwards of 40 Labour-held seats could come back into play for the Conservatives.

Given that UKIP is once again divided and is finding its territory under attack from a very different brand of Conservativism than that which fueled its rise, how long can Farage and his followers remain at the forefront of British politics?

Matthew Goodwin is professor of politics and international relations at the University of Kent and a senior fellow at Chatham House.