Insurance tycoon Arron Banks, one of the biggest UKIP donors, will establish a new political movement after claiming that he was suspended from the party.
Banks has been in a verbal tussle with UKIP MP Douglas Carswell while also criticising the party’s leader, Paul Nuttall. On his Twitter account, the insurance mogul speculated that his suspension was “apparently for saying current leadership couldn't knock the skin off a rice pudding!”
Banks described the new political party that he will set up as “UKIP 2.0, the force awakens.”
In a statement posted on Leave.UK’s Twitter account, Banks said UKIP allowed his party membership to lapse this year “despite having given considerably more than the annual membership fee over the past 12 months.”
“Apparently, my comments about the party being run like a squash club committee and Mr Carswell have not gone down well,” Banks said. “I now realise I was being unfair to squash clubs all over the UK and I apologise to them.”
“We will now be concentrating on our new movement,” added the multimillionaire, who founded both GoSkippy and Southern Rock. GoSkippy is an insurance broker focusing on car, home, van and bike insurance; while Southern Rock is based in Gibraltar and underwrites car insurance in the UK.
UKIP dismissed Banks’s claims, saying his membership had expired because he chose not to renew it despite reminders in the past.
“It would not be possible to suspend Mr Banks from something of which he is not a member,” Sky News quoted UKIP as saying.
Related stories:
Arron Banks to walk away from UKIP?
