The former Conservative MP and minister Neil Hamilton, who is Chairman of UKIP in Wiltshire, is reported today (April 20) as having been stripped of his role as the party’s national campaigns director for next month’s elections to the European Parliament and the council elections.
The Observer reports that Hamilton who was disgraced during the ‘cash for questions’ affair of the 1990s, is no longer UKIP’s national campaigns director. Hamilton’s place has been taken by UKIP’s director of communications, Patrick O’Flynn.
It is said he has fallen foul of the party leadership after he criticised UKIP’s major financial supporter Paul Sykes for not delivering his promised funding. Sykes apparently told UKIP he would withhold funds if Hamilton remained in the charge of the campaign.
Hamilton remains deputy chairman of the party. A UKIP spokesman told The Observer: “As was always envisaged, Neil Hamilton is now focusing his work as deputy chairman on regional campaigning and motivation and fundraising.”
UKIP’s decision was taken early in March and has been kept from the membership and the press until now.