Paul Nuttall, Ukip’s third leader in little more than two months, is a pragmatic and generally popular long-term figure within the party, widely seen as its best bet to quell a recent period of significant internal turbulence.
But at the same time the MEP and former history lecturer from Bootle in Merseyside has ambitious plans for Ukip, hoping to use worries over the pace of Brexit and discontent with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, coupled with English nationalism, to boost the party as a political force.
Nuttall, 39, is arguably the Ukip leader that Labour would worry about most – a state-educated northerner with strong opinions about equality but also a tough approach to law and order issues, favouring a possible return for the death penalty.
Nuttall, Ukip’s deputy leader from 2010 to 2016 and an MEP for north-west England since 2009, is known within the party as being largely outside the factions and splits that have marked it in recent months.
While not seen as Nigel Farage’s chosen successor, Nuttall has worked amicably with the former Ukip leader. He is talked about warmly by fellow MEPs from the party and has even offered the hand of friendship to Ukip’s solitary and semi-detached MP, the former Conservative Douglas Carswell.
Nuttall, who was among the crowd at the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and took a MA in history at Liverpool Hope University before lecturing there, has even promised one important piece of continuity from Farage: photographs taken in pubs.
“The next leader of Ukip will still be photographed with a pint in hand,” he told the Telegraph in an interview on the eve of the leadership election result. “It will just be a pint of Guinness, not warm beer.”
Nuttall was strongly tipped to stand as leader when Farage first stepped down after the EU referendum, and would have been among the favourites. But he chose not to and was notably cautious in throwing his hat into the ring when Farage’s successor, Diana James, stepped down after just 18 days.
Friends of Nuttall say this was not to do with political doubts, more concern about the impact such a public role and the scrutiny it entails would have on his family.
But once he decided to stand, Nuttall threw himself into the contest, telling the Guardian that Ukip was “in an existential crisis” and needed to re-shape itself following the EU referendum if it wanted to remain relevant.
This would involve an end to factional infighting, he promised, where disagreements would be sorted out “over a nice beer, not through coups”. He said: “This will be a new Ukip, where backstabbing will not be tolerated.”
On the eve of the result, Nuttall told the Telegraph that Ukip’s role was to ensure Theresa May “delivers” on Brexit, meaning to pull Britain out of the EU’s single market and customs union. This stance would also be used to pressure Labour in its heartlands.
Combined with this, Nuttall said, would be an attempt to tap into what he argued is a renewed sense of English nationalism after devolution in the other UK nations.
“The next big issue that’s going to come up in British politics beyond Brexit is Englishness,” he told the paper.
• This article was amended on 30 November 2016. An earlier version said Paul Nuttall took a PhD at Liverpool Hope University before teaching there. He took an MA and later began a PhD.
