UKIP: Marta Andreasen threatens legal action against Nigel Farage

The wolves are now really at the door!

Marta is not best pleased with Nigel after he claimed during a TV interview (Sunday's Politics Show with Jon Sopel) that Andreasen was out of touch, didn't know what she was taking about and hadn't even been to the UK for several months.

Nigel also admitted to Jon Sopel that UKIP had got their strategy wrong for the local elections. However, he tried his usual tactic of blaming everyone but himself.

Marta is now threatening legal action UNLESS he withdraws the comments about her.

This leaves Farage in a very, very awkward position. What can he do?

1. Apologizes and retracts his statement. This will be admitting to openly lying about her on national TV. Even the sycophants will be hard pressed to defend that!

2. Refuses to retract. Andreasen can then sue the UKIP leader for libel as his comments - she will claim - damage her reputation as a politician. And she has the money to do it!

A very public train crash. Something that UKIP is very good at!

Here is her letter to Farage:

22 May 2011

Dear Nigel,

I note with dismay your personal attack on me during your politics show interview with Jon Sopel last Sunday 22 May.

You will be aware and should have noted that during the course of my media appearances and the blog /press releases that I have sent out to highlight my lack of confidence in your leadership post the recent local elections, not once did I resort to personal invective.

I have been at pains to stick to a rational point which I restate here: winning only 0.7% of the seats contested is a dismal result. Or to put it another way as the interviewer put it to you and you conceded: Seven council seats won out of a possible nine thousand is indeed “small beer”.

Accusations of ‘being hopelessly out of touch’ such as that you made to Mr Sopel during your interview are part of the rough and tumble of politics and subjective. I can take these accusations on the chin in this context. I should state though that, to my mind, I am not one who is “out of touch” by trumpeting
failure as victory.

What I cannot and will not tolerate however is your assertion that “she hasn’t been to the UK for several months”.

This is a blatant lie.

I have been to the UK on numerous occasions in the past months. While you choose to in your own unique style of campaigning, I am hard at work acting on behalf of my constituents as well as keeping them informed of my activities at local and European level through my monthly newsletter.

In your interview you have slandered me in a very personal way that was not only uncalled for (however not entirely unsurprising given your abject failure to answer the substantive points that Mr Sopel put to you) but was also patently untrue.

The potential audience for the politics show is in the Millions. As such I cannot and will not allow your comments to stand on the public record.

I am writing to demand a full retraction from you of your comments about me not being in the UK. If this retraction is not immediately forthcoming you will leave me with no option other than to seek alternative avenues of redress. As you were speaking in your capacity of current Leader of UKIP, your comments also carry implications for the party if a retraction is not forthcoming.

I look forward to your reply and retraction.

Yours Sincerely
Marta Andreasen

You will also find this of interest. Taken from The Parliament.com:

UKIP members have reacted with "astonishment" to demands from Marta Andreasen for party leader Nigel Farage to quit.

Andreasen, one of UKIP's best-known and most respected MEPs, says Farage should step down as leader in the wake of the recent "dismal" local council results for the party in the UK.

On Wednesday, the former commission chief accountant said she "stood by" her demand.

It is the latest bombshell to hit the party after the decision by David Campbell Bannerman earlier this week to defect to the Tories.

Farage was overwhelmingly re-elected leader of UKIP only last November, but an unrepentant Andreasen said, "I have called for the resignation of the leader of UKIP and still stand by that position."

She explained, "Many in the party have argued for years that to be able to get out of the EU we need to have a presence at national and local level in addition to the one we have at European level.

"In 2009 when UKIP came second in the European elections we all celebrated and anticipated the start of a new era where the party would grow to become a credible option not just at European level but also at national and local level.

"I put a lot of effort into that election, not only by travelling around the country speaking in support of candidates, but also by managing the party coffers, a key role in a growing party, not least during election.

"Complying with the electoral commission requirements and making ends meet in UKIP proved to be a terribly difficult job as there was no financial discipline."

She added, "However, today the party is bankrupt and so it has been for the last six months at least."

She said one of the reasons for her demand was that the party "has engaged in costly and unnecessary court cases resulting from Farage's internal disagreements with colleagues or staff members.

"The party has also engaged in the costly and unnecessary promotion of by-elections where we had no chance at all of winning a seat and UKIP has recruited staff over and above its capacity.

"The management of the resources that we get from the EU as a result of our belonging to a political group is subject to the same abysmal mismanagement characterised by undemocratic and non-transparent recruitment decisions."

She said, "My disappointment started when Nigel announced he was standing down as leader eight months before the general election and with no advance notice. Buckingham's results left me in doubt about his strategic ability, which up to that point I was convinced he had.

"The results of this year, whatever the EU-style massaging of the figures, are bad without doubt: winning only 0.7 per cent of the seats contested is a dismal result.

"And Nigel, who promised great success, should be the first one to recognise this."

Farage was not immediately available for comment but senior UKIP member Godfrey Bloom leapt to the defence of his colourful colleague, telling this website he was "astonished" at calls for him to go.

He said, "Nigel was re-elected by a large majority of members. The election results were our best ever and I, and others, are stunned by what Marta is saying.

"I fully support Nigel as leader and cannot understand why she is doing this."

To read the original: LINK

We note that Godfrey Bloom - serial idiot, drunkard, womaniser and user of prostitutes - was the only one who could be persuaded to publicly support his Fuhrer. Nuff said!