New AM Mandy Jones does not want to be in UKIP group

A newly appointed AM who was told she could not be a part of her party's assembly group unless she fired her staff has told BBC Wales she now wants nothing to do with them.

Mandy Jones, who replaced Nathan Gill, said the UKIP group is "toxic" and she did not want to be in it.

She accused other UKIP AMs - with the exception of Caroline Jones - of "bullying" her.

UKIP AM Gareth Bennett denied this and said Ms Jones had "no common sense".

It was announced on Tuesday that the UKIP group would not accept Mandy Jones into its ranks, citing objections over her appointment of Mr Gill's former staff.

It had claimed that the new North Wales AM had chosen to employ people who were members of other parties, or had recently campaigned for other parties, or both, saying some had been abusive to other UKIP AMs.

Describing herself as a "Faragist", the AM claimed that former UKIP leader Nigel Farage had sent her a message saying he supports her "all the way".

Ms Jones, who is a UKIP member, told BBC Wales: "I don't want any of this negativity. That group is toxic."

She said she had no interest in being in the UKIP group. "No, not after this," she said.

"I'm not being bullied by them," she said.

UKIP group leader Neil Hamilton had accused Ms Jones of making herself independent after she left a meeting to discuss the group's concerns and did not get back in touch.

But Ms Jones rejected that and, giving her account of what happened on Monday, she said: "I went into that room, nine people in that room - eight of them (were) just hammering, and hammering and hammering away about my staff, and that I'd got to get rid of them - I either get rid of them or I get thrown out of the group.

"That lasted an hour and a half. I got up, [and] Gareth Bennett basically told me to get out.

"He said this meeting has gone on for an hour-and-a-half, it's taken up enough time, you walk out that door and you make your mind up."

She said the only person in the room who "didn't really have a go" was Caroline Jones, who was "quite pleasant".

"I said 'give me two hours'. I went back to my flat really, really upset."

Two hours after the end of the meeting, she said she was "getting phone calls from them. I didn't answer the phone, because my head was just absolutely mushed," she added.

Ms Jones said UKIP assembly members were "bullying" at the meeting.

Asked why she had employed Nathan Gill's former staff, she said: "I needed staff there to hit the ground running." She added they were on a temporary contract.

She said her staff were not involved with other political parties "now".

Gareth Bennett, UKIP South Wales Central AM, said the group members were friendly to Mandy Jones at the meeting, and denied that he told her to leave the room.

Rejecting the allegation that the group is toxic, he said: "Following all of this, most of the group have now agreed that it would have been a massive mistake to ever had such a person as Mandy Jones as a member of the group in any case.

"She clearly has no political judgement and no common sense."

In a statement, a UKIP Wales spokesman said: "Mandy was given no ultimatum of any kind. She herself asked for two hours at the end of the meeting in order to make a decision.

"A decision had to be made urgently as the presiding officer had to know by 9.30 the next morning whether to alter the seating arrangements in the chamber.

"Any suggestion that she was bullied is ludicrous."