General Election 2015: Suzanne Evans dismisses suggestions of Ukip leadership bid as 'rubbish'

She has been touted as a replacement for Nigel Farage as leader of Ukip, but Suzanne Evans has dismissed the suggestion as “rubbish”, saying if it were true she would be “standing in a seat I could win” rather than in a safe Conservative seat in Shropshire.

Speaking in the pretty market town of Shrewsbury, the Ukip deputy chair was blunt about her chances of ousting the incumbent Conservative candidate, Daniel Kawczynski, who has a seemingly unassailable majority. He was born in Poland and says he is campaigning against the “stigma” a large Ukip vote could bring to Shrewsbury.

The home town of Charles Darwin doesn’t feel like traditional Ukip territory. It is on the other side of the country from the party’s main battlegrounds of Clacton, Thanet and Thurrock in the south-east; there are few immigrants and little unemployment.

So some locals have been left scratching their heads over why Ms Evans, a former local BBC radio presenter and PR professional with rising standing in her party, is standing here. She points out she was born in the town, but there has been widespread press speculation that she could succeed Mr Farage as leader if a poor performance in May forces his resignation.

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But in an interview with The Independent on Sunday she said: “That’s rubbish. If I seriously wanted to be leader of Ukip, I’d be standing in a seat I could win. Then I’d be an MP and be in a stronger position.”

She is already seen by many commentators as an accomplished media performer on the “sensible wing” of the party. And, as the anti-European Union party’s chairman, she was architect of its manifesto and played a starring role at its launch in London last week. But she says Shrewsbury, where she worked in the market as a teenager, is her “home” and she didn’t want to be “parachuted” into a more favourable seat elsewhere.

Ms Evans refused to rule out a future leadership bid but insisted that she wanted Mr Farage, who she described as a “perfectly good leader”, to win in South Thanet that if he lost she would try and convince him “not to stand down.”

Even if she wanted to, Ms Evans is unlikely to be able to challenge Mr Farage from parliament. She may have received a warm welcome from grey-haired Salopians at a hustings event on Thursday, where promises to scrap the HS2 rail line and leave the EU went down well, but she faces the nearly impossible job of overturning a Tory majority of 8,000.

Speaking near the town’s historic market square, Ms Evans put a brave face on the task. She was born in Shrewsbury and said she’d be “extremely disappointed” if she didn’t win. However she only has a small team in the town and Ukip was the only party to pause its campaign efforts in Shrewsbury over the Easter break.

This has prompted the Conservative candidate to question why such a high-profile Ukip member is running in a seat she has little chance of winning. Mr Kawczynski said: “She claims to be from Shrewsbury but she left 20 years ago.

“It could be that it’s not an ultra-marginal potential Ukip target, so if she fails to win here it won’t necessarily be bad for her reputation.” His campaign team go further and say her inevitable failure will not “block” a future run for the Ukip leadership.

On the ground in Shrewsbury, it’s Labour that is worrying Mr Kawczynski. The Liberal Democrats came second in the last election, but now he campaign is targeting those tempted to vote Labour with the message that Ed Miliband can’t be trusted with the economy.

For her part Labour candidate Dr Laura Davies, a British Army veteran who teaches medical students in Birmingham, is making the future of the town’s hospital a key plank in her campaign, while she’s equally dismissive of Ukip’s chances. “They peaked early and their policies on the NHS are fantasy,” she said. “Ukip are in reality the BNP in smart suits and I think the people of Shrewsbury will see that.”

It’s a charge that Ms Evans has heard before from others and it gets her angry. “[She’s a] silly little girl.” she said, adding that she’s tired of the “same old, same old crap about Ukip being a single-issue party and racist” getting repeated unfairly.

Walking back across the town square, Ms Evans takes heart from two passing Ukip supporters clutching a Daily Mail article praising her party’s manifesto. “My agent is convinced there are lots of people here who don’t want to say openly that they are voting Ukip because of the media treatment of us”, she tells them, as they discuss Ukip’s electoral chances next month.

One of Ukip’s big problems, she says after they depart, is not that its manifesto policies are unpopular, but that the media continues to bring up “grossly inaccurate” accusations of racism. “Old smears die hard,” she says.

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