LONDON, Nov. 29 (UPI) — The right-wing U.K. Independence Party, which led the charge this summer on Britain’s exit from the European Union, tapped someone entirely different from fervent Donald Trump ally Nigel Farage on Monday to lead the party going forward.
The party, known informally as UKIP, selected Paul Nuttall as its new leader Monday morning. Nuttall is the party’s leader in the European Parliament and was Farage’s top deputy. He was also UKIP’s deputy leader between 2010 and September.
Upon his selection, Nuttall said Monday that he intends to take the party in a different direction than Farage did and does not want to copy his predecessor’s chummy relationship with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
“I want to make it perfectly clear — this leader of UKIP is not going to involve himself in foreign elections, period,” he said. “My focus is here, in the United Kingdom, on winning council seats and on getting UKIP backsides on the green leather of the House of Commons.
“I am my own man. I will be completely different to Nigel.”
Nuttall, 39, who won the leadership post with nearly 63 percent of the vote from party members, also said Monday that a primary goal is to win back Labour Party voters and develop UKIP into the “patriotic voice of working people.”
Though he was expected to win, Nuttall surprised many by his margin of victory. The runner-up, former UKIP deputy chair Suzanne Evans, received less than 20 percent of the vote.
Farage was the feisty and often combative leader who denounced the European Union earlier this year in the run-up to the June referendum, during which Britons voted to leave the 28-member bloc.
Though an effective leader for the party, Farage made party loyalists bristle through his cozy relationship with Trump in recent weeks. During the U.S. presidential race, Farage often defended the brash billionaire’s controversial rhetoric and campaign pledges.
“In this amazing, transformative and in many ways revolutionary year of 2016, it is ‘Brexit’ that directly led to the establishment being defeated on 8 November and Donald J. Trump being about to take up the presidency,” Farage said in a farewell speech before the vote Monday.
Last week, Trump made headlines for suggesting that Britain replace its present ambassador to the United States with Farage — a request almost unheard of in modern politics.
Farage met with Trump in New York last week to discuss a variety of issues, including Trump’s reported desire to block the construction of green energy wind farms in Scotland because they “sully” the view of the lush countryside. Trump unsuccessfully fought one such wind installation, near a Scottish golf course he owns, for that very reason.
Now, Nuttall is trying to distance himself from Farage, saying he remains hopeful about a Trump presidency — but was appalled by some of the Republican’s remarks on the campaign trail.
“I wouldn’t personally cozy up to him, no,” he said.
