Katie Hopkins joins UKIP in time for leadership contest

In a video posted on the party’s Facebook page, the 45-year-old said she was joining the group in order to “stand with ordinary Brits”.

Hopkins claimed that she “maybe an a***hole but I’m not that much of an a**hole” compared to other politicians.

“People always ask me when am I going to get into politics, when am I going to do something smarter than just gob off on social media,” she explained.

She continued: “But I do see that the time for just being on social media and just having opinions is wearing thin and is probably time for somebody like myself, who is at the pointy end of the spear most of the time, to make more of a formalised stand.

“And I am tired of seeing my fellow countrymen knocked down for going for a walk or trying to have a cup of tea. And I am not happy about people being imprisoned in their own homes.

“And I will certainly will no longer tolerate the fact that so many people can’t say what they think, even stopping themselves saying stuff when they think it because they know they will be found to be wrong or someone will try to take something for us.”

Rules in the party prevent new members from standing for leadership, but by joining it could give her greater influence on who takes the job.

The new contest comes after Freddy Vaccha was removed from the post in September and was replaced in the interim by former Tory MP Neil Hamilton.

Hamilton became the seventh person to take the UKIP helm since Farage stood down in 2016.

The party said Vachha was removed little more than three months after becoming leader “pending a formal investigation of a complaint of bullying, harassment, verbal abuse and other conduct likely to bring the party into disrepute”.

In October UKIP announced ‘Dr Gammons’ would be its candidate for the London Mayoral election.

Hopkins’ involvement with UKIP comes as Laurence Fox launched a political group and Nigel Farage rebadged the Brexit Party as Reform UK.