UKIP’s last Peer, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, has quit the party. Lord Pearson, who joined UKIP in 2007 and led it through the 2010 General Election, has cited the reasons for his departure. Among them is the decision by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to suspend its Leader, Richard Braine.
Lord Pearson said:
“I am resigning from UKIP because its in-fighting has made it irrelevant in the current Brexit confusion. “Moreover, under its present NEC, it is resisting a national debate about Islamism, which we need urgently.
“If its members and branches succeed in removing the NEC at an EGM, I would reconsider my position. In the meantime, I will sit in the Lords as an Independent Peer, and try to give a voice to the growing anger of our Eurorealist majority with their Parliament, Government, and electoral system.”
Another former UKIP Leader, Gerard Batten, who also opposes UKIP’s NEC, responded to the news:
”Malcolm Pearson has been a visionary Eurosceptic voice for over two decades and is alone in Parliament in raising general concerns about Islam. His position is reflected in the many thousands of ex-UKIP members who are at odds with the destructive agenda of the NEC and their refusal to back UKIP’s democratically elected leader, Richard Braine. “The current battle between the NEC and the members is just like the battle we face in our nation between a Remainer Parliament and a Leave Population. When we get rid of the current NEC we can get back to business.”
