The caricature of Ukip as a party of posh white people from the Tory shires lingers. Steven Woolfe, mixed-race and from a council estate in Moss Side in Manchester, does not fit that image. Add in his agreeable manner – knowledgeable, self-controlled and quietly combative – and it is clear why Woolfe is such an asset to Ukip.
Four years ago, Nigel Farage recognised as much. “My wife and I were watching Spooks on Sunday night on the BBC,” Woolfe recalls over coffee in Liverpool Street. “I got a telephone call, and it was Nigel Farage at the end of the phone. I said ‘are you joking?” He was not, and soon offered Woolfe – not even a party member at the time – the role of Ukip financial affairs spokesman.
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