The Chronicle On Paul Nuttall's Endorsement of Jonathan.

Jonathan Arnott MEP

North East MEP Jonathan Arnott says UKIP members should choose him as their next leader - because he’s NOT charismatic.

Launching his leadership campaign, he said the party needed a change from the charismatic leadership of Nigel Farage, who is standing down, and should choose someone who will “simply get the job done”.

The MEP portrayed himself

as the candidate who can restore unity to UKIP, which has been torn apart by bitter in-fighting and talk of coups.

And his campaign enjoyed a major boost as he was endorsed by Paul Nuttall, the party’s high profile deputy leader who had been seen as a favourite to win the top job before announcing he wouldn’t stand.

Mr Arnott also highlighted his commitment to backing the North and supporting manufacturing, and set out plans to ensure the Government and public services bought from British firms whenever practical.

Speaking in Manchester, the 35-year-old politician, who lives near Middlesbrough, said UKIP should have a positive vision of Britain with plans to make it “our equivalent of a shining city on a hill”.

He said: “Up here in the North we have a great manufacturing tradition. We build things. We make things.”

But despite this, he added: “In my region in the North East we have the highest levels of unemployment in the land.”

Under his leadership UKIP would have a policy of “a presumption of buying British for all public sector organisations,” he said.

Former United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage (WRONG. He is the current leader.)Mr Arnott said the party needed unity, adding: “I think we all know what this party is going through at present.”He said: “What we need right now more than anything else is an experienced, calm, safe pair of hands to lead this party.“We don’t need another charismatic character who will constantly be compared to Nigel.“What we need now to follow a charismatic leader is someone who will work hard, someone who will simply get the job done without any fuss and bring us all back together.”

He was introduced by Mr Nuttall, who said he had watched UKIP’s splits emerge with “growing incredulity”.

Mr Nuttall said: “All I read or hear are stories about in-fighting, insults, threats and potential expulsions.

“It is as though once the party won its battle with the European Union it looked around for something else to fight and chose itself.”

A former mathematics teacher, Mr Arnott has been MEP for the North East since 2014. Before that he was the party’s general secretary for six years.

UKIP’s civil wars stepped up a notch on Wednesday as leadership hopeful Steven Woolfe, who had been the favourite to take the top job, was excluded from the contest after he was apparently 17 minutes late submitting his nomination papers.

The party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) voted to block his candidacy by a “clear majority”, a spokesman said.

But supporters claimed he had been the victim of a coup led by UKIP’s only MP, Douglas Carswell, and Neil Hamilton, group leader in the Welsh Assembly.

And three members of the NEC immediately resigned from the committee in protest over what they called the “deliberate obstruction” of Mr Woolfe’s nomination.

MEPs Bill Etheridge, Diane James and Jonathan Arnott along with Elizabeth Jones, Councillor Lisa Duffy and Phillip Broughton will all be on the ballot paper.

UKIP has been riven by in-fighting as rival factions battle to secure control of the party.

Mr Farage has attacked NEC members as “among the lowest grade of people I have ever met” and has long been at odds with Mr Carswell and Mr Hamilton.