West Midlands UKIP MEP Bill Etheridge has declared war on the UKIP’s only MP - and demanded he be kicked out of the party.
Mr Etheridge accused MP Douglas Carswell of disloyalty, following UKIP’s loss in last week’s Stoke Central by-elections.
He also complained that the party had become too left wing.
And he said UKIP must be a “democratic revolutionary party” to succeed.
Mr Etheridge, the party’s defence spokesman, was speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Politics show after UKIP leader Paul Nuttall failed to become an MP in the Stoke Central by-election. Labour candidate Gareth Snell won the seat with 7,853 votes to UKIP’s 5,233.
Mr Carswell is UKIP’s only MP, but he angered some activists when he criticised the party on the BBC’s Question Time show on Thursday night, the day of the by-election, while votes were still being counted.
And Mr Etheridge said: “I’ve made it very clear that I feel he should be removed from the party.”
Speaking to BBC Midlands Political Editor Patrick Burns, Mr Etheridge said: “For his smug and smirking appearance on Question Time, talking about UKIP as if it was some other party, and then to say that we need to examine our principles and values and change them, I suggest that if he doesn’t like those principles and values perhaps he would go to a party that better suits his own values and leave us to plough on with being a radical, democratic revolutionary party and making changes, and that’s what we made our name doing.”
Mr Etheridge also suggested that UKIP’s failure to win the Stoke seat was a result of standing on a political platform which is too left wing. He said Mr Nuttall’s advisers should take responsibility for the loss, but stressed that he remained loyal to the party leader.
UKIP Deputy leader Peter Whittle said the party was “more united than ever” with a “sense of renewed purpose”, in a Sunday interview.
And he insisted Mr Nuttall would continue as leader.
