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Farage hands post-Brexit UKIP leadership to Diane James

He said he has given UKIP “absolutely all of me” as he revealed plans to tour Europe to foster Brexit-style “independence movements” now that he has stepped down as party leader.

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Ukip deputy chairman Diane James won the contest to replace Nigel Farage as the party’s leader.

Taking to the stage in Bournemouth, the 56-year-old said: “I still haven’t quite come to grips with it”.

Although less outspoken than the charismatic Farage, who resigned in July after achieving his political dream of helping Britain leave the European Union, James has still contributed to the controversy that often follows the anti mass-immigration party.

For a party that has had its fair share of in-fighting, UKIP has remained relatively harmonious during its leadership contest.

Mr Farage said he had campaigned for years to get his country back “and now, folks, I want my life back”.

Speaking from the party conference in Bournemouth, he welcomed the election of Ms James, an MEP for the South East region. “We should be the party people vote for if they want change”.

Mrs James said she wanted to unite the party.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There are far too many schisms and divisions which I think at this point are irreparable”.

Mr Carswell said: “Ukip needs to be the party for change”.

James will take over a party torn by infighting over the party’s future direction in the wake of the Brexit vote.

Dartford family lawyer Elizabeth Jones is also in the running as an outsider with Lisa Duffy, Bill Etheridge, and Phillip Broughton making up the full list of candidates.

“The membership has spoken and it has made a clear choice”, he said.

This was presumably a reference to favourite Diane James but Fargae added that from now he will be engaged in political life without leading a political party.

It polled the third highest number of votes in the 2015 general election after the Conservative and Labour parties.

Speaking after being elected as the new leader of UKIP on Friday, at the party’s annual conference in Bournemouth, she told journalists that “the jury is still out” on Trump, but that it was “for the American people to decide”.

Nigel Farage has insisted he will support “whoever the next leader” of Ukip is as the party prepared to unveil his successor.

Nuttall explicitly warned Farage, the outgoing leader who was due to speak about an hour later, that he should stay away and not attempt another return from retirement.

She went on to accuse the Prime Minister, who she tried to dub “magpie May”, of stealing UKIP policies and said that the Conservatives should remember where the “best ideas came from”.

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The leadership campaign was thrown into turmoil as soon as it began, with the previous favorite candidate, Steven Woolfe, disqualified for submitting his candidacy 17 minutes after the deadline, citing computer problems.

Diane James sees off rivals to replace Nigel Farage as Ukip leader