‘Why not just give up?’: UKIP candidate quizzed in bruising interview

UKIP candidate David Kurten was given some stinging general election questions by LBC's Iain Dale. Pictures: LBC/PA - Credit: LBC/PA

A UKIP candidate was asked why the party should be taken seriously in the general election after having nine leaders in three years.

LBC’s Iain Dale asked UKIP candidate for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, David Kurten, the bruising question during a phone-in.

“Yeah, I’ll be honest with you, we haven’t had an easy time since the referendum and since Nigel Farage stood down.”

Asked why he doesn’t “just give up”, Kurten said that he was “very glad we’re still here” and cast doubt on how well the Brexit Party could do in the election.

“Well they’re going to do a lot better than you, aren’t they?” came Dale’s stinging reply.

After Kurten pointed out that UKIP was only standing in 44 seats, Dale asked him: “why bother?”

The host continued: “Why bother when you’ve got the Brexit Party, you’ve got Nigel Farage, who everyone knows. Who’s heard of Pat Mountain?”

UKIP interim leader Pat Mountain in fact got considerable public exposure just the day before when she revealed that nobody in the party is “seriously” racist and that she didn’t know where her party was standing candidates.

WATCH: UKIP interim leader cannot name a seat her party is contesting in shambolic interview MORE: UKIP’s interim leader says she has not found a single member who is ‘seriously racist’In response to Dale, Kurten pointed out that the Brexit Party had pulled out of 317 seats, and that UKIP was attempting to cover seats where only a Tory Remainer was standing.

Kurten said that he was standing so that people “will have a choice to vote for a real Brexiteer who wants a no-deal, clean break exit where we come out of the EU and all of its institutions”.