The incident at the parliament in Strasbourg, France, came two days into a leadership contest sparked by UKIP’s new leader Diane James’s resignation after just 18 days as Farage’s successor. / AFP PHOTO / Frederick FLORIN
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) – by Dario THUBURN
British UKIP MEP Steven Woolfe is being kept in hospital until Sunday after he collapsed following a bust-up in the European Parliament that threatens to bring down a key driving force behind Brexit.
UKIP colleague Nathan Gill said on Friday that Woolfe, favourite to take over from Nigel Farage as party leader, was asked to stay in Strasbourg “for observation in the hospital’s neurological ward for the next couple of days”.
Woolfe fell unconscious on an elevated walkway in the parliament on Thursday after a fight with fellow MEP Mike Hookem, who denied punching him and dismissed the altercation as a “scuffle” and “handbags at dawn”.
The dispute broke out after Woolfe, a former barrister who grew up in a deprived area of Manchester in northern England, admitted that had considered joining Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party following the Brexit vote.
“Mike came at me and landed a blow,” Woolfe was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying from his hospital bed. But Hookem said Woolfe had started the fight, challenging him to go “mano a mano”.
“He came at me. I defended myself. There were no punches thrown,” said Hookem, a military veteran.
The UK Independence Party’s interim leader Farage, whose resignation announcement after the June vote to leave the EU brought party tensions to the surface, announced an internal investigation.
Farage on Thursday said the fight was “one of these things that happens between men”.
“You see third world parliaments where this sort of thing happens,” he told reporters near the hospital.
European Parliament President Martin Schulz also initiated an investigation, saying that the reported facts were “extremely serious” and “disrespectful and violent behaviour” had no place in the parliament.
Woolfe was rushed to hospital and initially said to be in a serious condition after suffering two “epileptic-like fits” and passing out.
French police have not been asked to investigate.
‘Breaking point’
The incident caps an extraordinary week for the party that effectively forced then prime minister David Cameron to call a referendum on European Union membership and was the third largest party by votes cast in last year’s election.
Diane James, UKIP’s newly-nominated leader, announced she was stepping down on Tuesday, just 18 days after winning a leadership contest, saying she did not have the “full support” of the party’s MEPs.
Party chairman Paul Oakden said James was shaken after being spat at in a London train station shortly after the leadership announcement.
UKIP’s main backer Arron Banks has threatened to leave the party, saying there were “Tory troublemakers and fifth columnists” in its ranks.
“People have worked too long and too hard to get UKIP where it is today, but it is clear that we ourselves are at breaking point,” Banks said on Thursday.
The insurance millionaire is reportedly considering setting up a new right-wing party.
‘UKIP’s day is done’
Woolfe accused Hookem of hitting him when the two men stepped out from a heated party meeting.
“I wasn’t bruising for a scrap. I asked to deal with the matter outside of the room because it was flaring up in the meeting and upsetting everybody and Mike clearly read that totally the wrong way.
“The door frame took the biggest hit after I was shoved into it and I knew I’d taken a whack and was pretty shaken,” he told the Daily Mail.
Later he said he began “feeling woozy” and started walking towards the medical centre before passing out.
“Next thing I know, I woke up surrounded by parliament staff, lying on the floor,” he said.
Hookem described the incident differently, saying that the two men were “grappling” and Woolfe fell onto another UKIP MEP after Hookem let go of him.
Commentators said the incident underlined the struggle unleashed after Farage announced in July he was stepping down, having achieved his life’s ambition of a vote to leave the EU.
“UKIP Out For the Count,” read a front-page headline in the Daily Mail, whose columnist Dominic Sandbrook wrote: “Unless it can somehow rise above its vicious court politics, UKIP’s day is done.”