UKIP elects new leader
Bournemouth, England 17 Sep (ANA) - The UK Independence Party picked a new leader on Friday to replace Nigel Farage, a key player in Britain's vote to leave the European Union, with the incoming Diane James pledging to ensure Britain follows through with a full withdrawal from the bloc. James, a former business analyst and the party's deputy chairwoman, said she would work to ensure that the Conservative government did not negotiate a soft Brexit. "The threats to the referendum outcome are increasing by the day," she told around 1,000 delegates at the party's annual conference in the southern English coastal town of Bournemouth. "This is what I want you to believe in and work with me on: Yes to a true, 100 percent, European Union exit." A member of the European parliament with little public profile, James has the difficult task of succeeding one of the country's most recognisable politicians after winning a ballot of UKIP's 40,000 members with 47 percent of the vote. She will inherit a party which won 4 million votes in the 2015 national election but is now riven with factional disputes and struggling to redefine itself after achieving its main goal of triggering Britain's exit from the EU.
An ally of Farage defected to the Conservatives on the eve of the conference, saying that Prime Minister Theresa May had delivered key elements of the UKIP manifesto since taking office in July and that droves of UKIP supporters were doing the same.(ANA)
FA/ANA/17 September 2016-------