Ukip has descended into virtual civil war after its embattled leader, Henry Bolton, accused members of plotting “an organised coup” against him after he was seen having dinner with his former girlfriend, who has been suspended from the party for racism.
Amid predictions Bolton could face a vote of no confidence by Ukip’s national executive this weekend, he insisted he would hold on to the post despite the controversy over his ties to Jo Marney, a 25-year-old activist and model, whom he said in an interview on Wednesday that he still loved and could get back together with.
Bolton, 54, was pictured dining with Marney on Wednesday night at the National Liberal Club in Westminster, despite days before saying he was ending their relationship after it emerged she had sent racist and offensive text messages.
Approached after the meal, Bolton said that she was returning to Maidstone and he was going home. They were subsequently photographed on the tube together while it was claimed that another picture showed them getting off a train in Folkestone, where Bolton has a flat.
Later Bolton was reported to have told Ukip officials that Marney had not spent the night at his house but took a taxi back to Maidstone, where she was photographed on Thursday.
Marney was suspended by Ukip after messages were published in which she made racial slurs against Meghan Markle, Prince Harry’s fiancee, among other offensive statements.
In a stream of updates to his official Facebook page late on Wednesday, seemingly posted after his meal with Marney, Bolton, a former army officer and political novice who was elected Ukip leader in September, said “an organised coup and insurgency against my leadership” had been launched.
He wrote: “Prominent individuals both inside and outside the party have cooperated with leftwing media to intentionally destabilise the party during this time and turn the members against me.”
Other posts included screenshots of text and chat messages which Bolton said showed a former leadership candidate, Ben Walker, colluding with Marney’s ex-boyfriend and others to seek to undermine Bolton.
Walker was not immediately available for comment.
In another sign the Ukip leader feels emboldened to fight back, Bolton told the Telegraph that he still had feelings for Marney. When asked if he could get back together with her he said: “I don’t rule it out, not at all.”
Ukip’s national executive will meet in London on Sunday to decide on Bolton’s future, and may hold a vote of no confidence on his leadership.
This would need nine of the 15 members to support it, but even then Bolton could remain in place until an emergency general meeting. If he quits, Ukip would face its fourth leadership election since 2016, when Nigel Farage departed.
It is a precipitous decline for a party that won nearly 4m votes at the 2015 general election, making it the third biggest political force in the UK by vote numbers. Support has since slumped and the party could now fracture completely.
Senior Ukip figures said it was difficult to gauge whether a no-confidence vote would gather the necessary backing. “The worst situation would be something like eight votes against him, with three in favour and the rest abstaining. Then we’d be a bit stuck,” one said, speaking anonymously.
Among Bolton’s critics, and even some who have backed him as leader, the concerns are less about the fact he had a relationship with Marney – breaking up with his Russian wife, Tatiana, with whom he has daughters aged five and 18 months – than the way he has handled the situation.
Bill Etheridge, a Ukip MEP who quit as a party spokesman this week and has called on Bolton to quit, dismissed the idea of an organised coup.
“It’s nonsense,” he said. “Until very recently I was travelling round the country speaking to Ukip branches encouraging them to give him time to prove he could do the job.”
Bolton had proved distant and without ideas, and several local party chairs had stepped down “because of a void of leadership”, Etheridge said.
He said: “And his response to being under pressure, rather than handling this with dignity and getting on with business, is that he’s lashed out wildly. He’s not dealing well with the situation, and not equipped to lead a political party.”
Marney was well known to other Ukip members as an activist with sometimes provocative views before Bolton met her shortly before Christmas. The senior party figure said that even if Bolton had not known in advance about her opinions, he could have foreseen the pitfalls.
“Henry has shown an astonishing lack of political judgment over this,” they said. “It’s the sort of situation where anyone with more experience would have seen the problems.”