Ghouls, goals, gaffes – Meet Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party MEPs

Their ranks include a resident of France, an actor with no credits to her name and someone with the middle name England. Meet the Brexit Party’s new MEPs…

DAVID BULL (Constituency: North West)

Former presenter on TV’s Most Haunted, of which he has said: “nothing you see is in any way faked or made up.”

JONATHAN BULLOCK (East Midlands)

After being democratically re-elected to the European parliament, the former UKIP MEP told a Brussels press conference: “We do not recognise this as a democratic organisation.”

MARTIN DAUBNEY (West Midlands)

Former Loaded editor who recently told the Guardian: “If you’re trying to enact change in an institution, then you’re better off being part of it.” This turned out to mean Martin staying on an MEP’s salary in the event of no Brexit rather than staying in the EU.

BELINDA DE CAMBORNE LUCY 
(South East)

Said to be an actor, but has no credits listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB).

NIGEL FARAGE (South East)

Asked on the campaign trail what Brexit would offer the people of Merthyr Tydfil, the nicotine-stained man frog replied: “We’ll be in charge of the steel industry.” Told that steel was manufactured 40 miles away from Merthyr, he replied: “That is Wales though, isn’t it?”

LANCE FORMAN (London)

Smoked salmon magnate who assured the Jewish Chronicle that he knows Nigel Farage is not anti-Semitic because
Farage did not give him a “strange look” or use “certain language” when they
met.

CLAIRE FOX (North West)

Despite previously being part of a group which voiced support for the 1993 Warrington bombings, refused during the campaign to apologise to the father of 12-year-old victim Tim Parry, saying: “I didn’t do anything… I don’t hold those views any more because there is no war going on in Ireland any more.”

NATHAN GILL (Wales)

Admitted in 2014 that his home care business employed dozens of workers from eastern Europe, claiming he was unable to “find local workers to do the jobs”.

JAMES GLANCY (South West)

Former soldier who believes “there should be another referendum in ten to 15 years time” and that Brexit “could be a complete disaster… more than likely, it will be just fine”.

BENYAMIN HABIB (London)

Property developer quoted as saying that after Brexit: “The pound would fall in value… our [company] income streams would go up in value. So we’re quids in on that front.”

LUCY HARRIS (Yorkshire and the Humber)

Told Radio Five Live that Brexit would have a negative effect on the economy in the “short term”, which she classed as “the next 30 years”. Added: “The economics aren’t as important as the principle.”

MICHAEL HEAVER (East of England)

Co-owner of right-wing site Westmonster. The rest is owned by Arron Banks, currently under investigation by the National Crime Agency and whose £450,000 gift to Nigel Farage is being examined by the EU’s anti-fraud
agency.

CHRISTINA JORDAN (South West)

Former nurse who says Britain will need more immigrant NHS workers post-Brexit. She claimed: “We’re not stopping people coming in, we’re going to open up and say, ‘wherever you’re from, our country needs you, come’.”

ANDREW KERR (West Midlands)

Lawyer and estate agent whose middle name is ‘England’.

JOHN LONGWORTH (Yorkshire and
the Humber)

Former supermarket boss who, during a recent LBC appearance, accused Gina Miller of “going round with her fingers in her ears”, then appeared to ring off before he could hear her reply.

RUPERT LOWE (West Midlands)

Had nine managers as chairman of Southampton FC, during which he hired rugby World Cup-winning coach Clive Woodward as director of football.

BRIAN MONTEITH (North East)

Elected despite living in the south of France, adding that this was “not unusual” and “neither here nor there”.

JUNE MUMMERY (East of England)

Fish auctioneer who says she wants to stop the EU “catching fish in our back garden” (must be a hell of a pond) and is nicknamed Boudicca by some colleagues. It didn’t end well for Boudicca.

HENRIK OVERGAARD-NIELSEN
(North West)

Danish dentist who exercised his right to freedom of movement when he came to live and work in the UK 20 years ago.

MATTHEW PATTEN (East Midlands)

Charity director who has praised Remainer Sadiq Khan, telling the Guardian: “His hands-on approach to social integration and community cohesion… celebrates the freedoms that permit and cherish diversity.”

ALEXANDRA PHILLIPS (South East)

Former Farage spokeswoman said to have clashed with his then-wife Kirsten in 2015 after she found them together on the family sofa. Phillips calls the story “baseless”.

JAKE PUGH (Yorkshire and the Humber)

His website states “I played a bit of professional cricket for Warwickshire” but Pugh does not appear in CricInfo’s exhaustive list of British players.

ANNUNZIATA REES-MOGG 
(East Midlands)

Former financial journalist who in 
2005 advised Moneyweek readers: “don’t join the mania” about Google. The company’s share prince has more than trebled since.

ROBERT ROWLAND (South East)

Close friend of Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn. Introduced himself at the party’s rally at Essex darts haven the Lakeside Country Club as a “tungsten-tipped Leaver”.

LOUIS STEDMAN-BRYCE (Scotland)

In favour of a second referendum… for the Scots. He said: “If the people said that is what they wanted then I don’t feel we would stand in their way.”

JOHN TENNANT (North East)

Called Godfrey Bloom “a legend” after the former UKIP MEP was thrown out of the EU parliament for shouting “ein
Volk, ein reich, ein fuhrer” at its then-president, the German politician Martin Schulz.

RICHARD TICE (East of England)

Attacked claims of food shortages after a no-deal Brexit by filming items in his local supermarket which had arrived from Egypt, Mexico and Kenya. Alas, all the food shown comes into the UK via a EU trade pact which would be null and void after a WTO exit.

JAMES WELLS (Wales)

Former bigwig at the Office of National Statistics, which last year revealed that EU migrants contribute £2,300 more to the exchequer each year than the average adult.

ANN WIDDECOMBE (South West)

Told the 3,500 Swindon Honda workers who will lose their jobs when the plant closes in 2021 that they should not blame Brexit, adding: “Factories close all the time.”

Brexiteers of the week

4 DOMINIC RAAB

“I’m a details guy; I spent six years in the Foreign Office,” Dominic Raab told The Andrew Marr Show as the battle for the worst quote of the Tory leadership election campaign began in earnest. It’s less than seven months since Mr Details admitted: “I hadn’t quite understood the full extent of this, but if you look at the UK and how we trade in goods, we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing.”

Meanwhile Raab’s rival Jeremy Hunt told the Times “doing deals is my bread and butter”. Alas for fans of the Loadsamoney novelty single, he neglected to add “my bird’s page three and my car’s a nutter”.

3 ANDREW ALLISON

The former ‘Kipper failed to win election to the European parliament despite standing for the Brexit Party in Yorkshire and the Humber. But there is a silver lining – it’s probably avoided an awkward meeting in Brussels with the party leader.

During the campaign, a now-deleted Tweet from 2016 emerged in which Allison referred to Nigel Farage as an “out-and-out bastard” and accused him of running a “Farage dictatorship – not democratic”.

Of course, both accusations are completely untrue – although the milkshake-stained man-frog has recently admitted that there is no way for Brexit Party members to depose him…

2 ESTHER McVEY

“The withdrawal agreement ship has sailed and needs to be put out of its misery,” claimed the Tories’ mistress of mixed metaphors, who really needs to keep an ear to the ground to avoid being left with a foot in her mouth.

McVey then appeared on Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday show to say an “invisible border” with Ireland could be put in place by October 31, when she would take us out of the EU on WTO rules. That’s slightly ahead of the Home Office’s estimate for when technology would be ready – which is 2030.

Note to Esther: That’s in 11 years rather than half-past eight tonight.

1 GERARD BATTEN

“The polls are closed & I hope that a large number of UKIP MEPs will be elected,” tweeted the party’s leader last Thursday night. Spoiler alert: It didn’t quite turn out that way.

While just about everyone in the country could have predicted that hiring in the rape jokes bloke and the guy who taught his dog to do a Hitler salute would not turn out to be a recipe for electoral success, Batten seems to have been shocked by losing his seat, as well as every other one the party contested. Since the scale of the rout became clear on Sunday he has stayed away from social media completely.