Ukip boss says his party 'like the Black Death' after election annihilation
2 min read
Ukip's general secretary has likened his embattled party to the Black Death as it faced near-total wipeout in the local elections.
The anti-EU party - which scooped up more than a fifth of the vote at the 2014 local elections - suffered a torrid night at the polls this time around, shedding dozens of councillors and leaving them with just three local representatives.
In astonishing comments this morning, party boss Paul Oakley likened his party to the bubonic plague that devastated Europe in the 1300s.
Mr Oakley told the BBC's Today programme: "Think of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. "It comes along and it causes disruption and then it goes dormant, and that's exactly what we are going to do. Our time isn't finished because Brexit is being betrayed."
Pressed on whether he intended to compare his own party to a pandemic that left millions dead, Mr Oakley said: "Absolutely. What's wrong with that?" And he said the Black Death had "also led to economic growth and the Renaissance".
"It got rid of the whole issue of servitude, basically, and allowed people to go into the towns and escape their landlords and create their own businesses," he said.
Mr Oakley also pinned the blame for Ukip's disastrous night on the party's ousted former leader Henry Bolton, accusing Mr Bolton of failing to campaign hard enough and presiding over a collapse in the party's finances.
The general secretary insisted: "We were never going to do brilliantly in these elections. We knew that.
“We accepted that some time ago. If we had had the money to campaign, we would have done a lot better. We are never going to take over councils all over the country. Four years ago was our high point."
The calamitous result for Ukip is a far cry from their 2014 triumph under then-leader Nigel Farage, which saw the party come top of the European Parliament elections held on the same day as the local vote.
The party's latest leader - Gerard Batten - tried to put a positive spin on the party's heavy losses.
"Politics is often a question of ups and downs isn't it - it doesn’t always go in a straight line," he told the BBC.
Asked about the general secretary's comments likening Ukip to the Black Death, Mr Batten said: "It wouldn’t have been my choice of medieval historic analogies." He also revealed that the party was currently raising funds to pay for "professional help" with its work.
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