Paul Nuttall is the favourite to become the next Ukip leader, according to an exclusive survey of elected Ukip councillors for The Times Red Box. Nuttall, a Ukip MEP for the North West region and former deputy leader of the party, holds a significant lead over his main rival, Suzanne Evans.
Over the weekend both Nuttall and Evans declared their candidacies for a role that became available after Diane James resigned after only eighteen days at the helm. The new leader will be tasked with turning around a party that has seen its money, membership and standing in the national opinion polls decline. As Nuttall himself observed at the weekend, if Ukip does not turn itself around then it could be game over for the party that has captivated British politics for much of the past five years.
Alongside Nuttall and Evans are a handful of other contenders, including Raheem Kassam, a controversial journalist at Breitbart and former senior advisor to Nigel Farage.
Using the SurveyMonkey website we surveyed nearly 150 Ukip local councillors and 91 replied. The grassroots supporters were first presented with a long list of Ukip activists, told to imagine that they were all standing for the leadership and then asked who they would vote for.
As shown below, the most popular candidate was Paul Nuttall with 42 per cent of the vote, followed by Suzanne Evans on 22 per cent and Raheem Kassam on 9 per cent. Interestingly, almost 8 per cent of councillors said they would not vote no matter who was standing, perhaps pointing to some disillusionment at the grassroots of the self-anointed “People’s Army”.
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We then asked councillors to choose between Nuttall and Evans. When presented with the binary choice, Nuttall once again finishes well ahead with 56 per cent. Evans is a distant second on 32 per cent.
The survey also reveals widespread support at the grassroots for the idea that Ukip should remain active and continue to campaign in the post-Brexit era.
When asked about Ukip’s future less than 10 per cent of its councillors thought that the party had served its purpose or should quit British politics following Brexit. In contrast, a striking 88 per cent agreed with the statement that ‘Ukip should stay active and visible over the long term, even after we have left the EU’.
With Nuttall the clear favourite in both the survey and the betting markets, this suggests that Ukip may turn its attention more firmly toward Labour territory, which Nuttall has long advocated. The former number two to Nigel Farage is also framing himself as the unity candidate and so may also award prominent positions to some of his current rivals, including Evans. Whether Evans, Farage and Douglas Carswell will all sit happily in the same party remains to be seen.
Matthew Goodwin is a professor at the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. Simon Hix is a professor at the London School of Economics.