A Brexit Party candidate's supposed foul-mouthed Twitter attack on Nigel Farage's decision not to contest Conservative seats has been exposed as a fake.
The account claiming to belong to Crawley candidate Wayne Bayley tweeted "F*** your election strategy and F*** Boris" after the Brexit Party leader's announcement on Monday that it would split the Leave vote if it challenged constituencies won by the Tories in the 2017 election.
It then followed up with posts proclaiming: "Very disappointed to see Nigel bottle it and back the EU treaty agreed by Boris. We will now not see Brexit because of Conservative back room deals," and "I will NOT be standing down due to some dodgy backroom deal. I will be standing as an Independent Brexit Party candidate. The Conservatives are proven to not be able to deliver Brexit."
The account - with more than 1,400 followers - also claimed Mr Bayley was £10,000 out of pocket after hiring a campaign co-ordinator and, as controversy began to swirl around the posts, added: "Just now hearing that someone pretending to be me has created a fake twitter profile and has been in contact with journalists to claim that mine is in fact the fake account. This is fake news!! I am the real Wayne Bayley."
But the Evening Standard can reveal that the account does not belong to the real Wayne Bayley after all. Its URL uses a capital I in Bayley instead of the l.
The genuine account has just 46 followers and (the real) Mr Bayley, 66, is right behind Mr Farage's new strategy, calling it a "masterstroke".
Trying to find the positive behind the controversy, the former pilot said: "I think that although there is no credit in trying to cause trouble for the Brexit Party, he's just getting more and more interviews for me where I can tell people what I think. Perversely he's [been] my friend.
"It's clearly managed to get a lot of attention but I have to make the best of these things.
"It's causing me a lot of grief to get this out and in perspective."
Mr Bayley, who has fought a campaign against commercial pilots being unable to fly after the age of 65, said he and the Brexit Party were trying to get the fake account taken down.
He said he joined British Island Airways in 1976 before moving to Air Europe, where he flew jet airliner and piloted transatlantic flights and routes to Asia during a career in which he had almost 26,000 hours flying time.
