Who will be the first UKIP MEP to jump ship?

Farage has previous form on losing MEPs as soon as they go to Brussels. Some don't like Nigel's nasty mid European friends. Some realise they have no further need for  Nigel. Others may not fit into the UKIP Brussels culture. Others may be seeing more of the monkey's bum than previously


Here is the list of the new intake.

East Midlands: Roger Helmer and Margot Parker.

East of England: Patrick O'Flynn, Stuart Agnew and Tim Aker.

London: Gerard Batten.

North East: Jonathan Arnott.

North West: Paul Nutttall, Louise Bours and Steven Woolfe.

Scotland: David Coburn.

South East: Nigel Farage, Janice Atkinson, Diane James and Ray Finch.

South West: William Dartmouth and Julia Reid.

Wales: Nathan Gill.

West Midlands: Jill Seymour, Jim Carver and Bill Etheridge.

Yorkshire & The Humber: Jane Collins, Amjad Bashir and Mike Hookem.

Scotland: David Coburn.

I must confess I have not met many of them so I will start with the hard core Farage worshippers who have benefitted from the patronage of the great leader

Jill Seymour

Paul Nuttall

Johnathan Arnott

Then there are those who can think for themselves and may have better offers. There are not many of these

Patrick O'Flynn

Julia Reid

Diane James

and possibly Stephen Woolfe

but that makes them the likliest to fall out with Nigel. Andreasen said he does not like intelligent women.

Some of the remainder are previous MEPs who will wish to keep in with  Nigel and stay on the EU gravy train. They have seen what happened to Nikki and Mike Natrass a case of pour encourager les autres so are unlikely to defect under any circumstances.

Gerard Batten

Roger Helmer

William Legge

Stuart Agnew

Of the rest I know nothing but I would welcome comments so I can construct my odds book and get a betting market going

So which green bottle will be first to fall? Again I welcome commments. Temptation will build up as we approach the General Election so I would anticipate the first defection around that time and when one goes others will follow.

The first guide will be who turns up and works hard at Newark next week excluding Helmer.