Britain's right-wing U.K. Independence Party has chosen European Parliament member Diane James as its leader, replacing the charismatic but divisive Nigel Farage.
The 56-year-old narrowly missed out on becoming the party's first MP in 2013 and has vowed to turn the eurosceptic movement into a "formidable winning machine." She defeated four other candidates in a ballot of party members.
Although less outspoken than the charismatic Farage, who resigned in July after achieving his political dream of helping Britain leave the European Union, James has still contributed to the controversy that often follows the anti mass-immigration party.
She apologised after warning of "crime associated with Romanians" while campaigning to become an MP, and raised eyebrows after praising Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Britain's June 23 vote to leave the European Union was a triumph for the Eurosceptic UKIP, which had campaigned for years to leave the bloc. Under Farage the party moved from fringe player to a political force capable of winning millions of votes and swaying public opinion.
James said her priority will be to prepare UKIP for fighting the next general election, expected in 2020.
"The people voted for a globally outlooking Britain. They voted to control our borders," she told the delegates to UKIP's annual conference, referring to Britain's Brexit referendum on June 23.
James promised to make UKIP push the government to achieve a "true, 100-percent European Union exit" in Brexit negotiations.
UKIP rose to become the third-largest party in a general election in May 2015, winning 13 per cent of the votes but only one seat in parliament under Britain's constituency-based system. The party is "handicapped by a flawed, morally bankrupt first-past-the-post [electoral] system," James said.
Farage announced his resignation after the referendum, after leading the right-wing party for a total of 10 years. He said he wants to focus on his personal life because the vote for Brexit "means that my political ambition has been achieved."
The party has since descended into feuding and the leadership race has been acrimonious from the start. Steven Woolfe, a Farage ally and the favorite to win the contest, was excluded because he missed the application deadline by 17 minutes.
Farage also said UKIP must push the government not to allow a "soft Brexit" that keeps Britain in the European single market.
James was born in Bedford, central England, on November 20, 1959, to an engineer father and a housewife mother. She studied business studies and tourism with languages at university, becoming fluent in French and German.
Her language skills helped her land a job with a German pharmaceutical company, before she moved into the healthcare sector in the 1980s, studying the US system.
"I had a very good feel for why the US model is quite frankly failing and the pitfalls that are there if the UK doesn't get it right," she told local newspaper the Southern Daily Echo in 2013.
James then set up her own consultancy business to help companies market their products in international healthcare systems.
She told the Southern Daily Echo she had been a long-time Conservative supporter until becoming "totally disillusioned" with its leadership in the 2000s.
Her first active foray into politics came in 2006, when she successfully ran as an independent in a local council by-election in Surrey.
