"Welsh" Ukip elects new Leader who receives 269 votes.

In 2016 seven Ukip candidates  won seats in the National Assembly four of hem have now in the space or two years been declared leader of that party in Wales.

The most controversial UKIP member to take the helm has won a three-way battle to lead the party in the Senedd.

Gareth Bennett has blamed immigrants for rubbish in Cardiff, and claimed transgender people undermined society by their "deviation from the norm".

Runner-up Neil Hamilton  who has also lost his most controversial crown said he could "happily" work with Mr Bennett, but outgoing leader Caroline Jones said she had "a lot of thinking to do"..

The party ordered the ballot of nearly 900 members in Wales to settle a row sparked when Ms Jones ousted former Tory MP Mr Hamilton as group leader in May.

Mr Bennett, AM for South Wales Central, beat Mr Hamilton by 269 to 193 votes in the second round of counting.

Ms Jones - leader for just six weeks - was eliminated after the first round with 130 votes.

Mr Bennett said he was "delighted" to have won the support of the party members in Wales "to take UKIP forward into the next assembly term".

He told BBC Wales he thought his anti-devolution stance was a "major factor" in his victory.

Community Councillors  candidates have lost elections with more votes than Mr Bennett.

The AM has called for a referendum on whether the assembly should be abolished, and has criticised spending on the Welsh language.

"I don't think party members in Wales have endorsed me because of my brilliant personality, because I have the most charisma or anything like that," he said.

"It's just purely and simply because I had the policies."

He is right about his lack of charisma In December 2017, Bennett was banned from speaking in the Chamber of the Welsh Assembly for a year by Presiding Officer Elin Jones. The ban came after Bennett criticised moves towards making it easier for transgender people to self-identify as women. Many critics believed that his inflammatory speech broadened the debate to become an attack on the very concept of minority rights. Ms Jones demanded he apologise for his comments that transgender people were "deviating from the norm". Bennett refused to apologise or withdraw his remarks, and was duly banned. In January 2018, Bennett made a partial apology in which he stated that he would accept the authority of the Presiding Officer, and he was allowed to resume his speaking duties without withdrawing his previous remarks. 

So he may try the tick of getting banned again , and claiming martyrdom , rather than is inept speaking prowess,

In his 2016 election he won notoriety for his comments about City Rd in Cardiff, where restaurants serving dishes from around the world are found.

He said: 

“That’s probably where we have a multiplicity, a melting pot of different races all getting on each other’s nerves, I think, and certainly causing lots of problems because of different cultural attitudes, very visible problems of rubbish which is being left on the street uncollected all the time.”

Here is his rather pathetic defence,

He has also claimed that Pontcanna in Cardiff has been colonised by Welsh-speakers and Non-Welsh speakers are being discriminated against.

That the 2011 referendum on giving the Assembly law-making powers was a ‘con trick’ and that wants a new referendum to abolish the Assembly.

That Labour and Plaid Cymru are pushing Wales towards a ‘Stalinist Police State’

 He also has campaigned for a licensing system for mosques

Reaction from other parties was more scathing.

For Welsh Labour, Health Secretary Vaughan Gething described Mr Bennett as a "deeply offensive man but not amusing in the slightest", while fellow Labour AM Lee Waters said: "Game over for UKIP in the Assembly? I can't see several of their AMs staying [in] the group with Gareth Bennett as their leader."

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood said she had been "consistent in my criticism of UKIP as a party that cannot and will not represent the values of Wales", adding that she thought their demise would be "welcomed".

In a direct message to UKip ahead of May's European election un 2014 , Ms Wood said. 

"Your politics have no place in our country, not now, not ever.
"Your values are not the values of Wales. A vote for UKIP is a vote against Wales - a vote against the Welsh national interest. We cannot and will not let their ugly politics divide us in May."

This led to Dafydd Elis-Thomas, the former assembly presiding officer to , condemn

 Ms Wood's description of a vote for UKIP as a vote against Wales in her speech to the Plaid Cymru spring conference.

He said:

 "It is facile and assumes a kind of superiority that we decide who is Welsh and who is not Welsh."

Dafydd El later left Plaid and now sits on the  Labour government benches in the Siambr.

Perhaps he can apologies to Ms Wood as it is now clear that she was bang on with her analysis.

However before we laugh we should consider that the right are on the march throughout western democracies.

We must not gall into the trap of believing it cannot happen here,