UKIP donor and Leave.EU founder Arron Banks has hinted at setting up a new political movement called ‘The Patriotic Alliance’.
Mr. Banks tweeted a logo for the organisation Wednesday afternoon with the comment: “No nonsense policies that will knock the skin off a rice pudding!”
He has previously spoken of plans to set up a movement of that name, based on Italy’s populist anti-establishment Five Star Movement, to bring Brexit supporters together across party lines.
Earlier this week, Mr. Banks said he had been “suspended” from UKIP on Twitter, speculating the move was “apparently for saying current leadership couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding!”
Hinting at a new project, he added: “UKIP 2.0, the force awakens.”
In February, after UKIP leader Paul Nuttall failed to win the Stoke-on-Trent Central by-election, Mr. Banks gave Mr. Nuttall an ultimatum in a newspaper.
“Either I become chairman and sort out UKIP by bringing in business people and professionals to make it electable or I am out of there,” he wrote.
“The party cannot continue to be run like a jumble sale. If Nuttall doesn’t professionalise it and toss out the likes of Douglas Carswell and the rest of the Tory cabal then the party is finished anyway,” he added.
In January, Mr. Banks told The New York Times that UKIP is now “stuffed” with people who use it as “a piggy bank rather than a vehicle for political change”.
He could form a new movement by reaching out to Brexit supporters from the referendum campaign and by taking advantage of the Labour Party’s current weaknesses, he claimed.
“We have a huge opportunity with Labour” MPs who are scared of losing power under hard-left leader Jeremy Corbyn, he said.
Asked how it would develop, he told the paper: “It’s not complicated. You don’t need a business plan. This is where you’re wrong. I’ve operated now 25 years without any business plan, and I’ve done pretty well.”