Stephen Lennon to stand against UKIP leader?

There’s still much fallout  from UKIP’s decision to deselect anti-Muslim activist Anne Marie Waters from standing for the party in the General Election.

Waters was due to be UKIP’s candidate in Lewisham East, but the party faced a barrage of criticism for the decision to readmit Waters to the party and then to nominate for the seat. Waters’ candidature was endorsed by the local party, but the party’s leader Paul Nuttall is believed to have put his foot down and Waters found out by only reading on social media that the party’s National Executive had backed Nuttall over the issue.

The National Executive Committee (NEC) made the decision after HOPE not hate and other media sources put pressure on the party to disavow the candidate. Waters, the former Pegida UK leader, founder of Sharia Watch UK, and would-be organiser of a controversial plan to exhibit “Muhammad Cartoons”, was understandably upset that the party had not informed her personally.

Now Waters’ old friend, English Defence League (EDL) founder Stephen Lennon, has declared open season on the UKIP leader. Lennon, who has (among other things) a conviction for fraud, has accused Nuttall of dishonesty.

Lennon has spent a great deal of the last twenty four hours tweeting and re-tweeting anti-Nuttall statements. This morning Lennon even declared he may stand against Nuttall in Boston and Skegness.

“I’m that pissed off with Paul Nuttall and UKIP de-selecting Anne Marie Waters cos (sic) she tells the truth about Islam that I may stand against him”

 

If Lennon were to go ahead with the threat, it would be most interesting. UKIP had always appeared more of a political home for Lennon than say, the British National Party or National Front, where others tend to wrongly believe his politics belong. Until the decision to de-select Waters, it was fair to assume that Lennon and UKIP were sharing the same trajectory.

Whatever the case, Nuttall will desperately not want Lennon standing against him. Despite his well known criminality, Lennon would currently appear a far more credible candidate than the perennial disaster zone that is Nuttall’s leadership of UKIP.

Lennon has never stood for election before. He was a short-lived Deputy Leader of the disastrous British Freedom Party, which was meant to bring together ex-British National Party members with EDL supporters, but he did not engage in electioneering.

If he really were to stand in Boston and Skegness, Lennon would bring a whole new kind of misery for the hapless UKIP leader, Paul Nuttall.