Snide and Prejudiced: A UKIP Love Story

Who would be the leader of UKIP? If it was a choice between that, and dunking your love spuds into a bucket of chum and then dangling them into a shark-infested tank whilst loudly critiquing the Jaws films, then I’d happily choose the latter.

Current leadership incumbent Henry Bolton is clinging desperately to his position after his recently acquired girlfriend was revealed to be too racist for UKIP, a hitherto undiscovered possibility.

The scandal, prompted by the publication of party member Jo Marney’s bigoted text messages, has sowed further discord in an already divided party. However, for a political entity that was nearly obliterated in the 2017 General Election and is struggling for a raison d’etre since the Brexit referendum, they needed something to get people talking about them again, and it just so happens to be the most captivating racist love story since Eva Braun and Adolf Hitler shared a cyanide night-cap in a Berlin bunker.

In fact, it could be turned into a screenplay. Two star-crossed lovers, bound together by a mutual fear of multiculturalism. Call it Snide and Prejudiced. And if that doesn’t get snapped up by a movie publisher, then I’ve got a cracking idea for a Toby Young biopic called The Fault In Our Tsars.

The back-story begins with Bolton separating from his wife, Tatiana Smurova. They have a child together, whom she gave birth to at London St Pancras station in 2016 after being in labour on the floor of a train (something that Jeremy Corbyn can sympathise with).

They disagree on the timing of the separation. Bolton says that he broke it off in July last year, whereas Smurova claims she only received a text announcing the split at Christmas, which must be the slowest delivery of a text since George W. Bush read My Pet Goat to a classroom of first-graders whilst the 9/11 attacks unfolded.

On Boxing Day, Bolton was pictured out drinking with Marney, which immediately became a tabloid talking-point given they have an age-gap that would have Woody Allen nodding with approval.

Cynics suggested that perhaps he had only left his wife and mother of his child for a glamour model less than half his age in pursuit of sexual predilections. Perhaps he’d heard she was a real wizard between the sheets; unfortunately it’s in the same sense as the leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

Bolton claims these were the "happiest days of his life," but their bubble was soon burst by Cupid-crushing misery peddlers, The Mail, on Sunday. The paper broke the story about Marney’s texts in a furious expose, simmering with moral indignation that someone who wasn’t on their columnist payroll had used such racially inflammatory language.

In the texts, she repeatedly referred to black people as "negroes," claiming they were "unattractive" and she "wouldn’t sleep with one." Given that Henry Bolton looks like something Nick Parks assembled whilst high on glue and then left by the radiator, this proves that love is not only blind, but even its guide dog has cataracts.

Marney’s vitriol was primarily reserved for newly-engaged Meghan Markle, whom she took particular umbrage with for infiltrating the Royal Family and "tainting its seed." This was too much for The Mail to handle. Yes, ordinarily we’d have a successful, black, feminist, American actress right in the crosshairs, but this one is a Royal-in-waiting now, so lay off her. We’ve got thousands of commemorative wedding mugs to shift this year.

Marney went on to say that "other races" are pushing their way to the top, and it won’t be long before we have "a Muslim PM." That’s a bit heavy for The Mail’s readership to digest first thing in the morning; if they read that before their first statins of the day it could trigger more strokes per minute than the University boat race.

In the aftermath of the story’s publication, Bolton claimed he had no idea about her views, and amidst a maelstrom of condemnation was forced to publicly announce the relationship was over.

Marney, protesting that the texts were "never meant for public consumption," fled to Disneyland in Paris, perhaps seeking solace in the surroundings of a theme park legacy to an acclaimed 1930s racist.

As a glamour model, she is living proof that beauty is only skin deep. Hopefully her views will mean she is shunned by magazines and photographers alike—glamourising Jo Marney would be like producing a glitzy West End production of the Rodney King beating.

After a self-imposed media black out (coincidentally two of her favourite words), Marney resurfaced in London, the story taking a fresh twist as she was snapped again with Bolton out drinking and on the tube back to his Folkestone West flat. He claims the meeting was purely platonic, but their ongoing association has brought him to brinkmanship with the upper echelons of the party.

If Bolton is ousted, who do the party turn to next? There is talk they could attempt to persuade their most recognisable figurehead, Nigel Farage, back out of retirement to spearhead the revival of UKIP.

Farage himself has been back in the news, being accused of making clandestine visits to justice-swerving Embassy-hermit Julian Assange. Rumours are that Assange may be soon finally ready to vacate the safe confines of the Ecuadorian embassy after being in situ there since 2012, in what has been the most protracted coming-out process since Cliff Richard.

Whether Farage can defibrillate the party back to life once again remains to be seen, but it seems unlikely that Bolton can reconcile his affections for Marney with UKIP. It’s clear they’re both still carrying a torch for each-other, it just so happens that hers is a tiki torch. Perhaps their story will get the ending it deserves, but in the meantime, pass the chum-bucket here please.