The Brex Factor: Fear and loathing in UKIP model’s tweets

Henry Bolton and Nigel Farage are the wolves at the door of Brexit. Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images 2017 Getty Images

Steve Anglesey counts down the worst Brexiteers of the week

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NEIL HAMILTON

“We are looking forward to welcoming our new team member, Mandy Jones into the group,” beamed UKIP’s Welsh leader on December 29, having won a long-running fight to get rival Nathan Gill to resign from the Welsh Assembly.

Just 10 days later, after Jones had the temerity to keep some of Gill’s staff on, poor Neil was forced to announce that she would not be joining the UKIP group after all. To lose one AM may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness – and it could soon be three, with Michelle Brown expected to find out later this month whether she will be sacked by her party after being recorded calling Labour MP Chuka Umunna a “f***ing coconut”.

MICHAEL GOVE

The Environment Secretary was the subject of a backhanded compliment from Tory backbencher Rebecca Pow after she was asked by Five Live’s John Pienaar: “Which animal does Michael Gove remind you of?” The answer given by Remainer Pow was “a quite tenacious Hereford bull” – an inspired response given that both the beast and Govey are stubborn, difficult to move and spend a lot of time in the countryside producing huge amounts of bullshit.

ROGER HELMER

With the ‘iconic’ – actually irrelevant and long-forgotten – blue passport on the way back, iconic former UKIP MEP Roger has thrown his considerable intellectual heft behind a move to restore the crown emblem to pint glasses used in British pubs. Alas for Roger, anyone who wants to put a crown emblem on a pint glass can already do so. The government’s 2015 guidance on The Measuring Instruments (Capacity Serving Measures) Regulations 2006 states that “stylised crown markings on beer glasses etc are permitted on a voluntary basis”. Another victory for taking back control of something we already had control of!

NIGEL FARAGE

“We are heading in a difficult direction. Banning things because you don’t like them solves nothing,” fumed the nicotine-stained man-frog after Virgin Trains announced their intention to stop stocking The Daily Mail.

Yes, that’s the same Nigel Farage who called for the banning of the burka in 2010, the banning of HIV-positive migrants in 2014 and the Trump-style ‘temporary’ banning of visitors from seven Muslim countries in 2016. Heading in a difficult direction indeed.

BOB SPINK

The former UKIP MP for Castle Point has been handed a six-month suspended prison sentence after being convicted of electoral fraud, leaving him free to continue his remarkable career as the ’Kipper Nostradamus. On June 23 2016 he tipped Remain to win the referendum (“I’m sickened… they’ve sold us out… Bob4Rerun”) before giving Liam Fox the nod to win the Tory leadership campaign. On election night last year he was telling followers “Exit polls will be proved incorrect. Tories will get a majority. Power to May’s elbow”.

Bob’s knack for calling it just right was in evidence again ahead of his recent trial for submitting false signatures on nomination forms, when he insisted he would clear his name. Once again, Spink was bang-on... apart from the small matters of the conviction, the suspended sentence, the £5,000 fine and the 150 hours of community service!

ANDREA JENKINS and JACK LOPRESTI

The Brexity Tory MPs, who got married in the Palace of Westminster just before Christmas, have revealed they have nicknamed their nine-month-old son ‘Brexit Clifford’ because he was born on the day Article 50 was triggered in Parliament. The youngster will be known simply as Clifford – a wise choice, since being called ‘Brex Clifford’ wouldn’t be the greatest start in life…

DAVID DAVIS

October 2017: The Brexit secretary tells the Cabinet he plans to hire up to 8,000 new staff and spend more than £600million planning for a no-deal Brexit.

November 2017: Davis says the government is planning for a no-deal Brexit, explaining: “It’s possible that we don’t get a deal… as a responsible government it is right that we make every plan for every eventuality.”

December 2017: Davis again talks about the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, saying that it would save Britain £40billion.

January 2017: David Davis complains that the EU is scaring business by talking about and planning for a no-deal Brexit.

TOBY YOUNG

Twitter casualty Young is now free to work on his new biography, How to Lose Jobs and Alienate People, after his resignation as a university watchdog over sexist remarks.

Rumours that Brexiteer Young’s original resignation speech began “I’ve made a few massive boobs and now it’s all gone tits-up” can be discounted, but what IS true is when parents arrived for a pre- launch open evening at his West London free school in 2011, they were surprised to see the library shelves containing only books by Boris Johnson. Staff apologised and assured them books for children – rather than those penned by overgrown children – would arrive soon.

HENRY BOLTON

After details of his affair with a 25-year-old model were revealed, the UKIP leader’s wife Tatiana has gone home to Russia. This marks the first successful repatriation of a foreign national by UKIP, and if Henry, 54, has to marry and then cheat on them all to get the net migration numbers down, surely the alimony will be a price worth paying?

JO MARNEY

Which brings us to Henry’s new partner, whose Twitter biography describes her as a “presenter, music journalist, model, actor and Brexiteer”, but alas not yet a “chilled-out entertainer”.

Jo’s social media posts are full of all the usual stuff 25-year-olds love: photos of drinks, dogs, smartphones and signed copies of Enoch Powell’s book Freedom And Reality. There’s also enough unpleasant material to qualify her for a key role with the Office for Students watchdog, including Jo’s views on nurses (“just posh cleaners”), Max Clifford’s fatal heart attack in prison (“death sentence… hope they’re happy now”), government-funded childcare (“if you can’t afford to send them to nursery and fund your own care for your kids, then don’t have any”) and victims of Harvey Weinstein (“a bunch of whining little divas who got hit on by a fat bloke once”).

Jo also reveals herself to be a big fan of Hunter S Thompson, and perhaps she and Henry should consider an acid-fuelled tour of the Brexit heartlands, inspired by the great man’s Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas: “We were somewhere around Barnsley, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold…”