UKIP party leader Gerard Batten speaks on April 18, 2019 in London | Leon Neal/Getty Images UKIP leader says Nigel Farage’s new group ‘not a proper political party’ War of words escalates between former and current UKIP leaders.

The leader of UKIP hit out at Nigel Farage and his new Brexit Party, saying it is "not a proper political party."

Speaking on the day of UKIP's European election campaign launch, Gerard Batten told Sky News that the Brexit Party is a "vehicle for one man." He added: "All you get from Nigel is rhetoric," and said UKIP "don't just say 'leave means leave,' we tell you how we would do it, how it would work, what it would look like."

"We stand for a clear unimpeded exit, unconditional, unilateral withdrawal," Batten said. "No ifs, no buts, leave and leave according to the way we say it should be done. So they can send a message to Westminster."

At the election campaign launch, Batten called UKIP "the real party of Brexit."

Among the UKIP MEP candidates are Carl Benjamin, who once tweeted that he “wouldn’t even rape” Labour MP Jess Philipps, and Mark Meechan, who was fined for teaching his dog to perform a Nazi salute.

Farage had taken a shot at UKIP earlier Thursday, tweeting that his former party has "just 3 MEPs. The Brexit Party has 16. The lurch towards extremism has destroyed UKIP." The 16 MEPs are all ex-UKIP members who quit the party.

Batten — who has described Islam as a "death cult" — told Sky that UKIP was putting up 1,400 candidates in the U.K. local elections on May 2, adding: "The Brexit Party doesn't have any candidates, because it's not a proper political party."

Farage's new party has not put forward candidates for the local elections but has announced a number of candidates for the European ballot, including Farage himself and Annunziata Rees-Mogg, sister of Tory Brexiteer Jacob.

Election polling from Wednesday put the Brexit Party out in front. A YouGov poll, commissioned by the People’s Vote campaign, put the Brexit Party on 27 percent, with Labour on 22 percent and the Conservatives on 15 percent. New pro-second referendum party Change UK was on 6 percent, behind fellow pro-EU parties the Greens and the Lib Dems. UKIP was on 7 percent.