Now Ukip 'is on the brink of bankruptcy': Party faces fresh crisis as senior party figures demand radical cost-cutting to keep it afloat
- Ukip’s recent accounts show it was £380,630 in debt before last year’s election
- Party’s MEPs Stuart Agnew and Bill Etheridge have planned proposal for change
- They warned: radical structural change and control of expenses will save Ukip
UKIP was plunged into a fresh crisis last night as it was warned it faces ‘imminent bankruptcy’ unless it immediately starts laying off staff and giving notice on its tenancies for office buildings.
A group of senior party figures demanded radical cost-cutting to keep Ukip afloat, including ditching all mailouts to party members.
Ukip’s most recent accounts show that it was £380,630 in debt even before last year’s surprise general election.
Ukip’s most recent accounts show that it was £380,630 in debt even before last year’s surprise general election. The party’s MEPs Stuart Agnew (left) and Bill Etheridge (right) have drawn up a ‘proposal for transformation’
The party’s MEPs Stuart Agnew and Bill Etheridge have drawn up a ‘proposal for transformation’ alongside its London party chairman Freddy Vacha, former leadership candidate Ben Walker and ex-parliamentary candidate Catherine Blaiklock.
They warned that only ‘radical structural change and control of expenses’ will ‘save Ukip from going under’.
In a damning assessment of the party’s precarious financial position, they wrote: ‘Ukip does not deserve to run anything.
‘It is rightly perceived to be incompetent. It has not controlled its own finances, not become an internet-focussed party, rewarded failure repeatedly and not changed or disciplined underperforming top-level personnel, paid or unpaid.’
In order ‘to save the party from imminent insolvency or bankruptcy’, the group said Ukip’s national Executive Party (NEC) must begin immediate cost-savings
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In order ‘to save the party from imminent insolvency or bankruptcy’, the group said Ukip’s national Executive Party (NEC) must begin immediate cost-savings.
Ukip has struggled to remain relevant following the Brexit vote and Nigel Farage’s departure as leader
They called for the party to ‘give immediate notice’ to its chairman, national agent and spokesman whose wages they claimed make up 45 per cent of Ukip’s salary bill.
Other suggestions included ‘giving notice on all rented property’ and ‘suspending the practice of paying expenses to any senior personnel’.
They added: ‘[The party must] stop anything going out by "snail-mail" and stop all paper magazines funded by Ukip’.
Ukip has struggled to remain relevant following the Brexit vote and Nigel Farage’s departure as leader.
The financial crisis comes as it faces the prospect of losing its leader. The National Executive Committee will hold a vote of confidence in Henry Bolton on Sunday, after he left his third wife for a model less than half his age, who it emerged had posted a slew of racist messages online.
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