Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption UKIP's Suzanne Evans announces leadership candidacy

Suzanne Evans and Paul Nuttall have announced they are to run for the leadership of UKIP, with both promising to unite the troubled party.

Ms Evans said she would make the party less "toxic" and aim to occupy the "common sense centre" ground.

Mr Nuttall, like Ms Evans an ex-party chairman, said he was the man to "bring the factions together".

However, interim leader Nigel Farage, speaking about Ms Evans, said: "I won't be voting for her."

The party has been in turmoil since the referendum in June, when the UK voted to leave the EU.

Mr Farage stood down as leader at the start of July saying he had achieved his political ambition. His successor Diane James resigned earlier this month after only 18 days in the job - leading to Mr Farage's return as interim leader.

Last week, Steven Woolfe, who had been one of the front-runners to replace Ms James, quit the party a few days after being involved in an altercation with fellow MEP Mike Hookem.

Ms Evans told the BBC's Andrew Marr show that she hoped to "pour oil on troubled water" after there had been "a bit too much testosterone" in UKIP.

She said focusing on the centre ground meant "not the wishy washy Lib Dem centre" but a party capable of taking votes from both left and right.

She also accused leadership rival Raheem Kassam of seeking to take the party too far to the right and added: "Our 2015 general election manifesto took the best of politics from the left and from the right".

Analysis

By Political Correspondent Alan Soady

Paul Nuttall described himself as the "unity candidate". Yet today's skirmishes show how much UKIP is riven by feuding factions.

This leadership contest is about much more than choosing an individual.

It's about deciding the future of a party which has been dominated for so long by Nigel Farage and focussed for years on getting - and winning - an EU referendum.

While the next leader will want to make sure the government delivers the kind of Brexit UKIP wants, there are longer-term existential questions.

These are: how the party stays relevant, what positions it takes on all sorts of other policy areas, and where it places itself on the political spectrum.

So far, the signs are the battle for the future could be a bloody one.

However, Mr Farage, speaking on ITV's Peston on Sunday, said she would not be receiving his vote, adding: "I don't doubt she has ability, it's just a question of political direction and to kick off her campaign decrying one of the declared candidates is not what we needed."

He also dismissed Ms Evans' views that the party should be in the centre ground, saying: "UKIP is a radical political party that pushes for change and needs to go on being a radical political party."

Mr Kassam responded to Ms Evans' accusation on Twitter, saying: "It is sad that 60 seconds after she launched her campaign on the BBC, Suzanne Evans attacked me and my thousands of supporters as 'far right'."

In a fuller email sent to Ms Evans, he added: "I would hereby request that you cease referring to vast swatches of UKIP as 'far right' and embark upon a positive campaign, structured upon not who you are against, but what you are for."

Speaking to Dermot Murnaghan on Sky News, Mr Kassam also said he wanted to unite the party and added: "I think now, especially after that incident with Steven Woolfe in the European Parliament, we have to say this has gone too far.

"We are all in the same party and if we wish to remain in the same party let's sit down around a table together."

Nominations in the current leadership election close on 31 October, with the eventual winner announced on 28 November.

Mr Nuttall said that he had decided to stand for the leadership after the troubles of the past few months, telling Andrew Neil on the BBC's Sunday Politics: "UKIP needs to come together. At the moment it is looking over the edge of a political cliff and it will either step off or step back. I want to be the candidate who will tell us to come backwards."

Explaining why, when he didn't stand for the leadership earlier in the year, Mr Nuttall said: "I felt that with Brexit that my job and Nigel's job was done and we could hand over to the next generation.

"But that doesn't appear to have been the case and maybe it's time for someone who's an older hand in many ways."

He added: "We need a strong UKIP there in the background to ensure that Brexit means Brexit and I believe that UKIP can become the patriotic face of working people."

Confirmed UKIP leadership contenders</s>The battle to become Ukip’s next leader has exploded into life, with the presumed frontrunners Paul Nuttall and Suzanne Evans both finally declaring they will stand, with the latter immediately denounced by the party’s outgoing figurehead, Nigel Farage.

In a sign of the splits still affecting Ukip, which is seeking someone to follow on from Diane James’s brief tenure in the job, it took just minutes after Evans said she would stand for Farage to declare he could not vote for her. 



Evans, a former Conservative councillor who helped draft Ukip’s 2015 election manifesto, appeared on BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show to declare herself “the right person to lead Ukip into the challenges ahead” and to champion the cause of continued Brexit.

“With me at the helm, I’m absolutely confident that we will be able to reach out to voters on both the left and the right of politics,” Evans said, saying that “perhaps at times there’s been a bit too much testosterone in Ukip”.

Evans was asked about Raheem Kassam, a former aide to Farage who now edits the UK arm of the Donald-Trump-backing rightwing US news website Breitbart. Kassam on Saturday won the support of Ukip’s biggest donor, the insurance tycoon Arron Banks.

She described Kassam as on the “far right wing”, and said Ukip did not need a “fresh injection of toxicity”, bringing a rebuke from Farage, who was appearing on ITV’s Peston on Sunday show immediately afterwards.

“For her to talk about the party being toxic, for her to already declare one of the candidates who is running, Raheem Kassam, as being far-right, I don’t view this as being a very good start,” said Farage, who returned as the party’s interim leader when James stepped down after 18 days in the job.

“I have to say they are the sort of things she said to me – after the general election, she said to me I shouldn’t take any part at all in the referendum campaign, I was toxic, immigration shouldn’t be discussed with the British public. I think she has been in the wrong place ever since that,” he said.

Farage added: “I won’t be voting for her, not after that, no.”

Nuttall, Ukip’s deputy leader and one of its MEPs, used yet another show, BBC1’s Sunday Politics, to finally declare he would stand as leader, describing himself as the only candidate able to bring the party together.

“I have huge support out there across the country, not only among people at the top of the party, in Westminster and with the MEPs, but also among the grassroots,” Nuttall said. “I want to stand on a platform of being the unity candidate. Ukip needs to come together.”



In the wake of James’s decision to quit and an alleged scuffle with a fellow Ukip MEP, after which the former leadership frontrunner Steven Woolfe spend three days in hospital and then left the party, the party was “facing an existential crisis”, Nuttall warned.

He said: “Ukip at the moment is looking over the edge of a political cliff. It will either step off or it will step back. And I want to be the candidate that will tell us to come backwards.”

Nuttall added: “I believe that I am the man to bring the factions together, to create unity within the party, and to build and restructure, and get us ready for the coming challenges.”

The leadership campaign, which will see voting among party members open next month, is nonetheless likely to be a bruising one, given the already open warfare between Evans and Farage, and Banks’s decision to back Kassam over Nuttall.

Kassam, who has himself got something of a track record of falling out with fellow party members, called Evans’s description of him “sad”. He said: “This is a project fear tactic and Ukippers are sick of these smears.”</s>Suzanne Evans and Paul Nuttall have both announced that they are standing to be leader of crisis-hit Ukip.

The two politicians both promised to hold the UK government’s feet to the fire on Brexit if they are elected to the helm of the party.

But while Mr Nuttall struck a conciliatory tone and pitched himself as the “unity” candidate, Ms Evans used her bid to launch a scathing attack on the current leadership.

She said Ukip needs to shed its “toxic” image and warned it risks becoming a Donald Trump-style party under the leadership of Nigel Farage and his allies. She accused her leadership rival, Raheem Kassam, of being a “far-right” candidate that will take Ukip in the wrong direction.

Ms Evans said: “Our future as a political party in Britain does not lie in that far-right wing. I don’t see a groundswell of opinion in this country for more far-right wing policies.

“I don’t see a groundswell of opinion for the right to bear arms in America.”

Ms Evans said she “absolutely” thought Mr Kassam – who has won the backing of party donor Arron Banks – will take Ukip in a far-right direction but “our members don’t want that”.

She said: “We’ve taken a lot of stick in Ukip because perhaps we have had a slightly more toxic image than we should have had. And our members, the ones that are doing the campaigning, have felt the brunt of that – being abused, being physically and verbally assaulted on the streets.

“They don’t want to have a fresh injection of toxicity that’s going to make it even more difficult for them, they want policies that help us win.”

Mr Farage is close to Mr Trump, appearing at a rally in the US for the controversial presidential candidate.

Ms Evans, who wrote her party’s 2015 manifesto but has since fallen out with Mr Farage, was unable to stand in the last leadership election after being suspended from the party for disloyalty.

But she tried to brush off claims that her unpopularity with the Ukip leader and his close ally Mr Banks would harm her chances of being elected to lead the party.

Mr Farage hit out at Ms Evans’ remarks, telling ITV’s Peston on Sunday: “For her to talk about the party being toxic, for her to already declare one of the candidates who is running, Raheem Kassam, as being far-right, I don’t view this as being a very good start.”

Steven Woolfe, the front-runner to replace her, also left the party in the wake of an altercation with another party member after which he ended up in hospital.

Mr Nuttall, Ukip North West MEP, said the party faced an “existential crisis” and could disappear unless it unified.</s>The former Conservative councillor who helped draft Ukip’s 2015 election manifesto, says she is the right person to champion the cause of continued Brexit, during an appearance on BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday. She was immediately denounced by the party’s outgoing figurehead Nigel Farage, who declared he could not vote for her
• Read: Ukip’s Paul Nuttall and Suzanne Evans to stand for leadership</s>The long-term girlfriend of Ched Evans has spoken for the first time about why she stuck by the cheating footballer following his rape conviction and recent acquittal .

Natasha Massey , now his fiancé and mother of his child, said that despite the star striker being jailed in 2012 she never believed he was guilty of the attack in a Rhyl hotel .

In a highly candid interview she admitted that despite hating what he had done, she still loved Evans, who she has been dating for the past seven years.

"I hated what he'd done, but I still loved him. I texted horrible things to him, I wanted to punish him, I wanted him to suffer," Natasha said.

But despite what he'd done - cheating on her with a then 19-year-old woman - she said she never considered him a rapist.

In an interview with the Telegraph, she said: "The only people who think Ched is a rapist are people who haven't met him. He's a big softie. Everyone who knows Ched can see why I've stood by him.
• Inside the North Wales hotel where Ched Evans had threesome with teen who later accused him of rape

"It's the people that don't know Ched have got this opinion of him. My friends have said, 'I don't understand why they're writing these things.' He's a family person, he always puts everyone else first and he's kind."

Ched, from Rhyl, was convicted of rape in April 2012. He served two-and-a-half years of his five-year prison sentence, during which time he refused to partake in a sex offenders rehabilitation program because he stood by his innocence. He was released in October 2014, and had campaigned for his innocence ever since .

A new trial was motioned earlier this year and on October 14 Ched was found not guilty, clearing his name of any wrongdoing.

But he had wronged his girlfriend, who at the time of the incident in May 2011 had dated him for around two years.

Describing how she found out about the infidelity and rape charge at the same time, she told the Telegraph: "I threw up."
• How Ched Evans' girlfriend stood by him through five years of rape case hell

"I was so shocked I was physically sick. I couldn't stop crying and shaking," she added. "I'd been going to spend the rest of my life with this guy and, immediately, I said, 'I'm not going to be with him now.'"

Following much soul-searching on a girls' trip in Marbella, she decided she would stand by him, believing his words: "I will make it up to you, Tash, I will make it up to you."

She said: "I know he can be an idiot, and he behaved appallingly, no doubt about that, but rape? No. He hasn't got it in him."

The hardest part was when she found out, the day before his original guilty verdict, that Ched had performed oral sex on the woman.

She said: "I thought, I can't even look at you. After being so supportive to him and everything, but that is just such an intimate thing."

But she still stuck by him, dressing up to visit him in prison.
• Ched Evans: From talented schoolboy footballer to tales of threesomes

She said: "I never cried in front of him, except on a couple of visits. I knew on the other visits he was only being upbeat for me, but at least I knew he was OK enough to try and seem OK."

Natasha also justified the decision at the retrial to bring up the defendant's previous sexual history .

"If it's a rape where some man's just jumped on a woman in the street, you're not going to mention her sexual history because it's got nothing to do with it. But in a case like Ched's it did matter because it was to do with consent," she said.

"Her life's been destroyed. Ched, his life was completely destroyed. He went to prison. This girl never said she was raped, all she said was I can't remember what happened."

Natasha added: "She maybe went along with it and then there was no going back. She never turned up at the first trial. The police had to fetch her and bring her to court. I think she knew it wasn't right."

For now, Natasha and Ched are raising their nine-month-old son, Flynn, and Ched is contemplating his return to football. Recent attempts to sign him have been marred in controversy, though such deals were drafted before his acquittal.</s>LONDON (AP) — Two rival candidates announced bids Sunday to lead Britain’s fractious right-wing U.K. Independence Party — both warning that UKIP faces extinction if it doesn’t change.

Suzanne Evans, a former journalist who has clashed with longtime leader Nigel Farage, said UKIP must shed its “toxic image” and move from the right to the “common-sense center.”

Evans told the BBC that “at times there has been too much testosterone in UKIP,” and said the party could not win if it moved to the far right.

Paul Nuttall, a former UKIP deputy leader, said he would be a unity candidate to save a party that was “looking over the edge of a political cliff.”

“I believe that I am the man to bring the factions together,” Nuttall told the BBC.

Nuttall served as deputy to Farage, but distanced himself from the outgoing leader’s support of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

“I personally wouldn’t have gone out and campaigned or said anything about Donald Trump,” Nuttall said, branding both Trump and Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton “quite appalling.”

A small anti-European Union party, UKIP was instrumental in getting Britain to hold a referendum on EU membership, which ended in a June 23 vote to leave the 28-nation bloc.

The result was a political triumph for UKIP; Farage stepped down after the referendum, saying he had accomplished what he wanted to with the win. But since gaining its long-sought goal the party has been torn by infighting.

Earlier this month, UKIP European lawmaker Steven Woolfe was hospitalized in a neurological unit after an altercation with a party colleague inside the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, France.

Woolfe had been the favorite to become UKIP’s next leader, but announced last week he is quitting the party.

One divide in the party is between allies of Farage — a hearty populist who charms some voters and repels others — and those including Evans and UKIP’s sole member of Parliament, Douglas Carswell, who want the party to become more professional and centrist.

Farage’s first replacement, Diane James, quit after 18 days. Farage is serving as interim leader until a new chief is announced on Nov. 28.

Besides Evans and Nuttall, three other candidates have announced they are running.</s>Ukip’s most high-profile donor has backed a former aide to Nigel Farage for the party leadership amid speculation ex-deputy leader Paul Nuttall was poised to enter the race.

Insurance tycoon Arron Banks said he was backing Raheem Kassam for the leadership “despite Paul Nuttall running” for the job.

Nuttall has yet to publicly declare if he will stand in the contest, having declined to stand in the previous leadership race earlier this year.

The present leadership contest was triggered when Diane James quit after just 18 days in charge and has been thrown wide open after frontrunner Steven Woolfe quit in the wake of an altercation with a fellow MEP.

Kassam, an ex-chief of staff to Farage, welcomed the support offered by Mr Banks, the co-founder of the Leave.EU Brexit campaign.

He said: “This is a major endorsement from someone who has been one of the driving forces behind Ukip in recent years.

“Banks ploughed his personal time and money into the referendum campaign and the party, and for those wondering whether he still stood with Ukip, this is a very clear sign: he does, under a Kassam leadership.

“I’d like to thank Arron for the brave and important support, and I look forward to working with him to make Ukip great again.”

Banks said on Twitter: “I’ve been very impressed with Raheem’s ideas, despite Paul Nuttall running I think he’s the candidate to beat. He’s got my support.”

The new Ukip leader will be announced on 28 November, with nominations to replace Ms James closing on 31 October.

Another potential leadership contender, former deputy chairman Suzanne Evans, is listed to appear on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, fuelling speculation she will enter the race.</s>When asked about the elevator at Evans Hall, many students at UC Berkeley will complain about how long it takes, how it stops on every floor on the way down or how there’s only one elevator to serve a whole building. But we here at the Clog think those points are just irrelevant, and we know that there are invaluable experiences you can gain by waiting for the elevator in Evans Hall. Stop whining and start waiting the right way.

Pondering your existence is one of the most important things you can do in life, because it will help you realize how small you are and will just really make your life worth it. Ponder why you are here, why the Earth is here, whether there are aliens, etc, etc, etc. Make yourself nice and freaked out by lots of existential crises while waiting for the elevator in Evans Hall. It will be a good, healthy experience for you while you’re quietly standing in front of the elevator. It’ll also remind you an extra five minutes waiting for the elevator aren’t even noticeable in comparison to the grand time scheme of the universe. Have fun pondering why you exist!

2. Count the number of cracks in the ceiling.

After your existential crisis, you can do something even more valuable — count the number of cracks in the ceiling. Honestly, is there any better way to spend your time? Doing this will expand your knowledge of math and cracks in ceilings, and will be a lovely, tedious process that is perfect for wasting time before the elevator. We promise it’ll be worth the 10 minutes the elevator will take. Kind of.

3. Worry about everything you have to do and everything you aren’t getting done by standing waiting for the elevator.

Once you’ve questioned your own existence and have successfully counted every single crack in the ceiling, now it’s time to worry. By standing and waiting for the elevator for twenty minutes, you’re stopping yourself from completing what you should be doing. We know you have that bio lab report, an essay for psychology and a math midterm coming up. So now is the time to worry about all of them, because honestly, is there a better time? Hang out in front of the elevator and worry away. It’ll be a fantastic experience.

We all know that waiting for the elevator is the perfect place for social interaction. I mean, if you remember any previous elevator ride you’ve ever taken, you know that everyone talks to everyone waiting for the elevator, instead of ignoring them and looking at their phones. It’s not as if everyone stands there in silence in front of the elevator, sneaking glances at each other and pretending to be busy. It’s such a great social experience, because it’s a half hour of quality time. You can talk to anyone you want to, because they’ll be both appreciative of it and expecting it. Don’t listen to anyone who denies it — waiting for the elevator is the single best way to make friends.

5. Talk yourself out of going to office hours.

Waiting for the elevator can even apply to your academics. You’ve headed over to Evans Hall to get the help you really need in your math class from your professor, and you were ready and motivated to get it. But while waiting for the elevator for an entire hour, you realize that this whole experience isn’t really worth your time. You can just get some help later, or even the day before the test. This is a wise choice, and one you’ll only be able to make standing and waiting for the elevator in Evans Hall. Way to keep your academics in check!

As you can see, waiting for the elevator in front of Evans Hall is an invaluable experience. It’ll be a fun, enjoyable and definitely worth your time. So head over to Evans Hall today, even if you don’t need to go.</s>More than 40 female Labour MPs have written to the attorney general warning that women will be less likely to report rape because of the legal precedent set in the retrial of the footballer Ched Evans.

The members of the women’s parliamentary Labour party, including its chair, Jess Phillips, Harriet Harman and Angela Eagle, have urged Jeremy Wright to support a change in the law to stop a move towards the sexual history of rape complainants being used routinely to discredit their evidence in court.

They made the plea after evidence about the sexual history of the complainant was used in the retrial of Evans, a former Wales international who was acquitted earlier this month.

In the letter to Wright, they wrote that a move towards revisiting the sexual history of complainants in court would “act to make the prosecution of rape cases in the future harder and reporting of these crimes less likely”.

“The verdict and events in this case set a dangerous precedent that how a victim of rape, usually a woman, has behaved in the past can be taken as evidence of the way she behaved at the time of the alleged rape,” they wrote.

“This will deter victims from disclosing their abuse and will reduce the number of victims presenting their cases to the police for fear of having their private lives investigated and scrutinised.”

They said there was an additional risk that in an age of social media and online stalking, victims could fall prey to private investigations and the crowdsourcing of information into their past sexual partners.

“The ruling will act to encourage defence lawyers in rape trials to effectively apply for an individual’s completely legal and private sexual history to be admissible as evidence,” they said.

In the recent retrial of Evans, details about the sexual history of the complainant were used after appeal judges ruled the accounts were so similar to the alleged encounter with the footballer that it could not reasonably be explained as coincidental.

The MPs said the ruling created a precedent when such evidence had only previously been used once in the past 16 years in a case where the similarity of the sexual conduct was bizarre and unusual.

They are asking Wright and the justice secretary, Liz Truss, to change the law to specifically make it clear that sexual history evidence can only be used when the similar conduct is unusual and out of the ordinary.

Their arguments echo those of Vera Baird, the former solicitor general, who last week told Radio 4’s Today programme that the events of the case had set the law back decades when it comes to treatment of rape complainants’ sexual history.

“The only difference between a clear conviction of Mr Evans in 2012 and the absolute refusal of him having any leave to appeal at that time, and his acquittal now, is that he has called some men to throw discredit on [the woman’s] sexual reputation,” she said.

“That, I think, is pouring prejudice, which is exactly what used to happen before the law in 1999 stopped the admission of previous sexual history in order to show consent.”

To increase the pressure on the government, the MPs are demanding a meeting with Wright and the Ministry of Justice in order to discuss a change in the law or regulations.

“We must act to cease the return to a culture of ‘victim blaming’. We believe that the use of a complainants’ sexual history should never be used in our courts as evidence of consent,” they said.

“We are calling on the government to act. The women’s parliamentary Labour party ask that you and the minister of justice meet with a delegation from our group to discuss how the government will progress on this issue. We offer you our support in working towards a solution and promise our full scrutiny should this not be resolved.”

Phillips is also planning to raise the issue in the House of Commons at attorney general questions and call for a debate. She said the action was being taken by a united group of Labour women who have fought together to improve the lives of rape victims and protect women.
Suzanne Evans, former UK Independence Party (UKIP) deputy chairman, and Paul Nuttall, President of the Initiative for Direct Democracy in Europe and Member of the European Parliament, each announce their candidacy for the UKIP leadership position, now held on interim basis by Nigel Farage. Other confirmed candidates are Bill Etheridge, Raheem Kassam, and Peter Whittle.