Ukip's Steven Woolfe offers 'hand of friendship' to MEP after clash

Woolfe will remain in hospital until Sunday as a precaution after altercation with party colleague Mike Hookem

Steven Woolfe has “reached out the hand of friendship” to a fellow Ukip MEP with whom he was involved in an altercation that led to him having to spend three days in hospital, a colleague has said.

Another MEP for the party, Nathan Gill, told journalists that Woolfe would remain in hospital until Sunday “as a precaution” but said his health was not in danger. “He is sick of croissants and looking forward to a full English breakfast,” Gill told journalists outside the hospital in Strasbourg, after visiting his colleague.

Ukip’s interim leader, Nigel Farage, announced he was launching an investigation to discover the truth behind the incident in the European parliament on Thursday, although the party’s chairman, Paul Oakden, said there were no independent witnesses to the confrontation between Woolfe and Mike Hookem.

“The party will be holding a full and thorough investigation into what happened,” Gill said. Asked to explain the chain of events, he declined to comment and said he had not been in the room.

Gill said it was too early to say whether Wolfe would still be a candidate to lead the party, which has been thrown into chaos since the shock resignation of Diane James after only 18 days in the job. He insisted the affair would not damage Ukip, because “we are a little bit Teflon coated”.

Gill reiterated that Woolfe did not want any police involvement, saying: “Only people who were in the room should be commenting on what happened in the room.”With Woolfe recovering, Oakden said he hoped the two men would agree to move on from the “regrettable” incident and get on with the election of a party leader.

However, Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament, announced his own urgent inquiry into the incident, in part to see if it had breached the code of conduct for MEPs.

“I would first of all like to wish a speedy recovery to Steven Woolfe MEP, who is currently hospitalised,” Schulz said in a statement, also thanking medical teams and staff at the parliament for helping Woolfe.

“The reported facts are extremely serious,” Schulz said. “It goes without saying that disrespectful and violent behaviour does not have a place in the European parliament.”

He added: “As a consequence, and regardless of the possible judicial consequences that this incident may also have, I have decided today to refer this very regrettable matter to the advisory committee established by the code of conduct, and asked for it to be dealt with as a matter of urgency next week.”

The advisory committee, comprising five MEPs, will meet next Wednesday. If Woolfe or Hookem are found to have broken the parliament’s code of conduct, they could lose up to 10 days of allowances, totalling €4,000 (£3,600), or be stripped of their voting rights for the same period.

The clash happened during a heated meeting of Ukip MEPs. Two hours after the meeting, Woolfe collapsed and was taken to hospital, where he had a brain scan.

Woolfe told the Daily Mail that after he and Hookem left the meeting room to continue the argument, his colleague “came at me and landed a blow” and he then banged into a door frame.

Hookem has said he did not punch Woolfe and that he did not see him hit his head.

Oakden, who is leading the investigation into what happened, said the conflicting accounts could make it difficult to establish the truth. “I have spoken to people who were there and everything I am being told at the moment would suggest that there were no witnesses. That is going to present a problem,” he told BBC Breakfast.

“I hope that we don’t end up in a situation where we just have two members here disagreeing on the facts but with nobody else able to corroborate either. What I am hopeful of is that we have two members who accept that something happened yesterday that was unfortunate, regrettable, and they, as we all do, will want to move on from it and focus on electing our new leader.”

In a statement, Farage confirmed he had asked Oakden and the party secretary to conduct an investigation “from which the truth will be discovered”. “All other claims being made in the media by representatives of Ukip who were not even there at the time are extremely unhelpful,” he said.

Despite the damaging publicity for the party, Oakden said it would recover from the incident. “We are a functioning party of tens of thousands of members. This is two members who had an incident, an altercation. We will deal with it in due course and with appropriate action once we know the facts,” he said.

However, Lisa Duffy, runner-up in the last leadership contest, said the incident raised questions as to Woolfe’s suitability for the leadership. “I have been talking to a lot of members over the last few hours. They are embarrassed about what’s happening to the party,” Duffy told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Do we want a leader who will get himself involved in an altercation, or do we want a leader who is going to be rational and reflect and deal with things in an appropriate manner? Violence or any kind of offering to go outside is not the way to deal with problems.”

Duffy said she had spoken to Hookem, who denied throwing any punches. He told her the incident was sparked by a row over Woolfe’s admission that he had considered defecting to the Tories.

“Steven then said ‘let’s take this outside’ and started taking his jacket off. Mike then said there was a small scuffle but absolutely no punches were thrown,” Duffy said. “He said then a door opened and Steven fell backwards, which is when he then hit his head. But he is categorically stating that he never threw a punch at Steven.”

Woolfe has insisted he was not “bruising for a scrap” and said Hookem had read his suggestion they should deal with the matter outside of the meeting room “totally the wrong way”.

Ukip’s troubles in Strasbourg appeared to have little impact at the ballot box as the party won a council byelection on Thursday with almost 50% of the vote.

Tim Fleming won the Headland and Harbour ward on Hartlepool borough council after the resignation of a Labour councillor. Fleming took 496 of the 1,009 votes on a 17.8% turnout, giving him 49% to Labour’s 25% share of the vote. Labour maintains its majority on the council, with 19 seats, and Ukip is second with six.

Contributors

Jennifer Rankin in Strasbourg, and Peter Walker

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