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Morrissey claims UKIP leadership election was “rigged”

By | Published on Tuesday 3 October 2017

Morrissey

Morrissey has said a thing that people found confusing and possibly slightly offensive. We should probably just run that sentence once a week, assuming that it will always be correct. This week, he’s claiming that the UKIP leadership election was rigged.

Performing live on BBC Radio 6 Music to promote new album, ‘Low In High School’, and kick off the radio station’s ‘6 Music Live’ week, Morrissey told the audience at Maida Vale Studios: “I was very surprised the other day. It was very interesting to me to see Anne Marie Waters become the head of UKIP. Oh no, sorry she didn’t – the voting was rigged. Sorry, I forgot”.

Met with bemused silence, he added: “You didn’t get it, did you? You obviously don’t read the news”.

Anne Marie Waters was one of six contenders for leadership of UKIP in last week’s election. Although one of the favourites, her standing as an anti-Islam candidate was controversial even within the party. Most of the party’s MEPs threatened to quit if she was elected, and there were fears that a last minute rush of new members to the party before the vote was a sign of a far right coup. In the end, she was beaten into second place by the more libertarian Henry Bolton, who secured 29.9% of the vote to Waters’ 21.3%.

Whether or not Morrissey’s comments showed support for Waters or not isn’t clear. The musician has previously expressed admiration for former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, due to his “quite logical” ideas. Bolton’s views are more in line with Farage’s, so would seemingly be more likely to get Morrissey’s support. But maybe Moz is digging the anti-Islam vibe post-Brexit. Although, given how “magnificent” the former Smiths vocalist felt the referendum result was, you’d think he’d want someone more focussed on pushing for that result to be delivered.

Either way, what we’re looking at here is an increasingly irrelevant force in British discourse. And also UKIP.



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