Ukip MEP denies Nigel Farage coup bid

A SENIOR Ukip MEP has insisted he remains loyal to Nigel Farage despite launching an extraordinary attack on the leader, claiming he had become a “snarling, thin-skinned, aggressive” man who is turning the party into a “personality cult”.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage. Picture: AP

The party’s campaign chief Patrick O’Flynn denied he was launching a “coup” against Mr Farage and said he believed that the leader should continue to serve the full four-year term he had been elected for.

Mr O’Flynn’s defence of his public attack on the party’s leadership and the “poisonous” aides in Mr Farage’s inner circle came as a senior source suggested that the Ukip leader should quit.

Speaking to Sky News, Mr O’Flynn said: “If anyone thinks or supposes I am planning some sort of coup against Nigel, they couldn’t be more wrong. He is my political hero and will remain so.

“I have been a loyal supporter of his leadership all the way along but he has, unfortunately, a couple of people in his inner circle who are ‘wrong ‘uns’ in my view and are trying to influence him in a direction which is neither productive for Ukip nor, even more importantly, productive for the general campaign to get Britain out of the EU.

“That should be our number one objective. No one should have any truck with anything that puts that goal in jeopardy.”