UKIP leader Richard Braine says he is ‘getting fed up’ with jokes about his name

Newly-installed UKIP leader Richard Braine. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire. - Credit: PA

UKIP’s new leader Richard Braine has said he is ‘getting a bit fed up’ with people joking about his name – and that he is considering changing it.

“Dick Braine” trended on Twitter shortly after he was elected as the successor to Gerard Batten as leader of the right-wing party.

Braine has took to Twitter to complain that the jokes about his name was “bullying”.

He wrote: “I’m getting a bit fed up with all this dickbraine stuff.”

He continued: “It’s time to change my name to stop the bullying. Are my prospects better if I change my christian name to Gideon or George?”

The former chair of the party’s West London branch was referencing George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor, who is one of a number of Conservative MPs to change their name.

Osborne changed his name from Gideon to George at the age of 13.

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Similarly Boris Johnson’s full name, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, is not regularly used.

Tweets joking about Braine’s name came in thick and fast on Saturday after his election.

Jane McCallion said: “Tell the scriptwriters they’ve gone too far: Dick Braine is elected leader of UKIP”.

MP Liz McInnes tweeted: “I see that UKIP, in their perpetual leadership contest that is rivalled only by the DFS sale in its longevity, have now elected a triumph of nominative determinism, a Mr Dick Braine.”

David Lammy MP wrote: “I wish I could laugh at the fact that this man is literally called Dick Braine. But I can’t, because I know it will only mask the seriousness of his dangerous and vile Islamophobia. His predecessors would be proud.”

He is not the first politician over the past week to go viral for his name – American politician Richard Nelson ‘Dick’ Swett endorsed Joe Biden on Monday evening leading to similar jokes being made over the pond.