ANKARA
Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain’s rightwing U.K. Independence Party has faced unprecedented criticism, fuelling rumors that party infighting may lead to an internal coup.
Prominent UKIP donor Stuart Wheeler told Sky News on Thursday: "Personally I would not want him to be the leader now.
"He has a quite aggressive, rather fun style, but I think it is a bit divisive."
“A rather quieter approach would be a better method than the method by which he’s become so well-known and popular, which is highly effective, but I think it’s now time for something quieter," he said.
Wheeler has given hundreds of thousands of pounds to the anti-EU, anti-immigrant United Kingdom Independence Party.
His comments came after UKIP economics spokesman and general election coordinator Patrick O’Flynn called Farage “snarling, thin-skinned and aggressive” in an searing article for the UK daily The Times.
Arron Banks, another high-profile UKIP donor who gave the party £1 million ($1.57 million) last year, backed Farage, saying he “deserved a rest rather than petty squabbling from lesser people".
The criticisms came after Farage's messy resignation following the UK's general election and his return to the party’s leadership.
Farage, who stood in the South Thanet constituency, had previously promised to resign "in 10 minutes" if he failed to get elected.
After the seat was won by the Conservative Party's Craig MacKinlay, Farage backtracked a few days later, claiming the party’s national executive committee had voted unanimously to reject his resignation.
O’Flynn said the affair “has certainly laid us open to the charge that this looks like an absolutist monarchy or a personality cult”.
Like Wheeler, he argued UKIP needed a more consultative and consensual leadership.
O’Flynn took a softer line in a Sky News interview later in the day, saying Farage “is my political hero and will remain so”.
He targeted his fire at Farage’s aides instead, saying, “Some people around him would like to take UKIP in the direction of some hard-right, ultra-aggressive American Tea Party-type movement … People who want to get rid of the National Health Service or liberalise gun laws or whatever other U.S. imports.
“UKIP will prosper and has prospered when it positions itself in the common-sense center of British politics."
Other senior UKIP figures were less diplomatic.
Controversial former UKIP MEP Geoffrey Bloom told BBC News: "Nigel said he would resign ... This is the seventh time he has failed to win a seat ... He’s clearly now an extremely tired and stressed man. Time for him to move over, one might think.”
Bloom was demoted in the party after making tactless comments about women and other issues and subsequently left the party.
He said of Farage: "He’s not a team player. He’s very popular with the membership, but sooner or later UKIP is going to have to decide whether or not it wants someone who is popular in a UKIP conference hall or popular with the electorate.
"UKIP have got to mature... We are at the crossroads now.”
He backed UKIP’s only elected MP, Douglas Carswell, to lead the party – a view echoed by Wheeler.
“I think (Carswell) naturally should step forward now. For the good of the party, I think they should unite behind him,” Bloom said.
But it is unlikely Carswell will get the position as he defected from the Conservatives last year and said in his by-election victory speech: "I never will be the leader of the United Kingdom Independence party and I will never seek to be the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party."
Farage and Carswell have also recently been locked in a feud which threatens to lead to Carswell’s exit from UKIP.
UKIP are entitled to £650,000 in public funding as an oppostion party, having won 3.9 million votes in the election.
Farage wanted Carswell to take the money and run a large parliamentary office – an idea Carswell rejected out of hand on Wednesday.
He told BBC Radio 4: "There are one or two rather excitable staffers in UKIP who came up with a proposal that involved hiring 15 extra people.
“I mean, I’m not an American senator. I doubt that even Ed Miliband when he was leader of the opposition would have had 15 staff in his office."
“UKIP is meant to be different and UKIP is going to be different and I think we need to make it absolutely clear that when we spend money, we are doing it because it is the right thing to do, not just simply because the money’s there," he said.
A senior UKIP official responded, saying Carswell was “was throwing his toys out of the pram” and only the party could decide how to spend its money, regardless of Carswell’s views.
If Carswell were to leave UKIP by defecting back to the Conservatives or running as an independent, UKIP would lose all £650,000 as they would no longer have any members of parliament – adding fuel to an internal party fire.
