Ukip sent a spy to obtain “information from the inside” on an anti-Nigel Farage protest group, where campaigners say he tried to encourage activists to deface posters and heckle outside meetings.
The party admitted that it had sent an informant into the Thanet branch of the “Stand Up to Ukip” group during the election campaign, following what the party described as “a series of threatening attacks against Mr Farage in the run-up”.
It added: “In order to provide reasonable security it was of course necessary to have information from the inside. In order to do this it was important to gain the trust of the activists, an approach used by a great many security operations tasked with protecting the safety and well being of a targeted individual.”
The party’s statement comes after campaigners in the Stand Up to Ukip group uncovered the spy after finding a photograph of him standing next to Farage and his close protection officers on a Ukip members’ Facebook page.
They said they were always suspicious of a man claiming to be called “Edward Johnson” who turned up for a few of their meetings this year in Farage’s target seat of South Thanet, saying he was a builder from Essex.
But the Stand Up to Ukip group claims the insider went even further than just trying to infiltrate their activities and tried to encourage the campaigners to behave badly and abuse Farage, which could potentially have discredited them.
Text messages from “Edward Johnson” provided by Thanet Stand Up to Ukip urged one campaigner to help him deface Ukip posters. This read: “Alright mate I done a bit of defacing last night at the billboards only a bit as there was quite a lot of people about also saw some more that havnt been touched next to asda in town what do you think ? They mega offend Me what say you pal ??? You have some friends that might want to help ?”
Another read: “Hey dude i just saw farage the barrage down broadstairs beach gave him some shit which he didn’t like lol I over heard he was coming back down in an hour if you wanna come down and give him some Abuse ?? tell your mates.”
The campaigners said “Edward Johnson” even provided them with a list of public meetings that Farage would be attending.
After searching the internet for the mobile number used by “Edward Johnson”, the Stand Up to Ukip campaigners found it was listed on the website of someone called John Hutchins, whose Twitter biography says he is a close protection officer.
A LinkedIn page for one John Hutchins said a man of that name has since January worked for Secura Associates, the company used by Farage to provide his security.
Secura Associates and Hutchins have not responded to requests for comment about the allegations.
The allegations of dirty tricks in South Thanet, where Farage failed to get elected last week, comes after a bruising 48 hours in which Patrick O’Flynn, a senior Ukip figure and MEP, accused some in the leader’s inner circle of running an overly aggressive campaign.
Several times in the election campaign Farage complained about a group of “trade union-funded activists” being bussed in to his target seat to sow “hatred and resentment, and they’re inciting vandalism and public disorder”.
He was particularly angered by a demonstration organised by a group called Beyond Diversity, which he said frightened his children and forced them to flee while he was having lunch in a pub near his home.
This group is unrelated to the Thanet Stand Up to Ukip group, which is organised by people local to Thanet, including campaigner Bunny la Roche.
In December, Ukip’s chairman in Scotland, Arthur Thackeray, had boasted that the party was using undercover measures to spy on its opponents. He described Ukip’s network as “‘a very good intelligence service” adding that the private investigations would “most definitely” continue ahead of the election.
A spokesperson for Thanet Stand Up To Ukip said: “We were sickened to see that this man who had come to our meetings, socialised with us, listened to our conversations seems all the time to have been a member of Nigel Farage’s team.
“But he not only spied on us, he actually urged some of our members to commit criminal damage.”
Farage’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to win South Thanet became particularly bitter and divisive at some points, with Ukip’s supporters and detractors claiming to have been subject to intimidation and dirty tactics.
Norman Thomas, editor of a community magazine, Thanet Watch, claimed at one stage that there had been a campaign of intimidation against people publicly opposing Ukip.
Ukip supporters in the area were also targets for vandalism and protests, with one Ramsgate councillor having his garage defaced three times.
