Ukip are holding a ‘press conference for women’

The event, designed to present Ukip as a party that is friendly to women. It has so far got off to a less than auspicious start as the backdrop collapsed.

Patrick O’Flynn, Ukip’s economic spokesman, has admitted that some of the party’s male members are still “boorish” and “chauvinistic”. He told gathered journalists: “I think Nigel himself has said that sometimes UKIP has resembled a rugby club on your. I think that’s become less and less true.. but we need to work harder, and there still are occasions when men in the party who should know better have occasionally resorted to boorishness or chauvinism. And when that happens I make sure I express my own displeasure.

However the Ukip policy chief Suzanne Evans said that the perception that the party could be anti-women is down to problem down to “lies other parties put out against us… We don’t hate women”. Ms Evans also defended Nigel Farage against criticism he faced last year over comments he made about women and breast feeding. She said: “It was actually the presenter of the programme who said women should sit in a corner. Nigel never said any such thing. I don’t have a problem with it at all. It’s a natural thing. “Frankly I think anyone who gets upset about breastfeeding in public and then buys The Sun is a hypocrite. Nigel never said it.”

Ms Evans said she has to “struggle through” the conference as she began to lose her voice.