Former UKIP millionaire donor Arron Banks has announced that he will challenge the party’s former MP for Clacton, Douglas Carswell, in the June 2017 snap general election.
Banks made the announcement via Twitter moments after Prime Minister Theresa May called a General Election for 8 June 2017.
Banks, who donated £1 million to UKIP in 2014 before funding the caustic anti-immigration Leave.EU campaign, has been embroiled in an ongoing feud with the libertarian Carswell.
The feud is believed to have started when former UKIP leader Nigel Farage began clashing with Carswell over policy and messaging around immigration in the 2015 general election campaign.
Banks withdrew his support from UKIP after an explosive clash with Carswell in March, announcing his intention to launch a new political movement, The Patriotic Alliance (TPA), for 5 May, the day after the 2017 local elections.
Carswell has since quit the party and is expected to defend his seat as an independent.
Banks’ sidekick, Leave.EU communications director Andy Wigmore, has hinted that in light of the June election that the launch of TPA may be brought forward.
The embryonic movement is expected to be helmed by Nigel Farage and to be unabashedly influenced by the combative anti-immigration campaigning style of Donald Trump. Farage has yet to comment.
HOPE not hate will continue to report as the emerging movement develops.
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