To lose a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) in a constituency once could be considered unfortunate; to lose him twice demonstrates something rather more than carelessness.

Much has been written about the suspension of Ukip General Secretary, Roger Bird and the lemming-like rush to grab the attention of the British media by Ukip's former Basildon South and Thurrock East candidate hopeful and feminine equivalent of Walter Mitty, Natasha Bolter.

But no outlet so far has run the wider back story, one which underlines some of the problems that fester in Ukip, and which have the capacity to damage the Eurosceptic cause should a referendum be held on leaving the EU and Ukip seeks to play a high profile role in the debate.

Looking at the constituency, Basildon South and Thurrock East is currently represented by Tory MP, Stephen Metcalfe, who won the seat in 2010 with 43.9 percent of the vote. Ukip's Kerry Smith came fourth with 5.9 percent. Metcalfe is defending a majority of 5,772 next May.

Given that this southern Essex seat is one where many constituents feel dissatisfied or even angry about issues such as immigration, Ukip is poised to reap enough defecting voters from the Tories to make the seat winnable for Labour or, as the party hopes, even snatch the seat for itself.

It is because Ukip considers the seat winnable that, in October this year, it telephoned Kerry Smith - who is also the leader of the UKIP group on Basildon Council – to inform him he had been removed as their PPC. The party had decided that regardless of the wishes of the local members in Basildon, a "big fish" should be parachuted in. The local membership opposed his deselection unanimously, but Farage had made his mind up.

What then followed was the likes of Ms Bolter, considered by the party to be a big catch defection from Labour who ticked all of the tokenism boxes so beloved by the party – female, non-white, ex-Labour, supposedly well educated, supposedly professional, working in the public sector – being put up as PPC for selction by the local party.

Here then we saw the first batch of Farage's omnishambles in this process.

Firstly, there was his autocratic deselection of a local candidate, against the wishes of the local membership, simply to provide him with a carrot to help lure in a high profile or celebrity candidate.

Secondly, there was his broken promise that he would professionalise the party and guarantee aspiring candidates would be vetted to ensure unsuitable people, perhaps with objectionable views, questionable backgrounds or personal deficiencies, were screened out.

Thirdly, there was the desperate tokenism designed to advance people based on their identity and make them highly visible, just to the party could counter detractors by declaring how inclusive it is and how it appeals to people who are not just white British.

All of these were avoidable failures. Sure, a party might make one of these mistakes every so often. But each failing was compounded by another underlining the lack of competence and the over-centralisation of control.

This then led to the former Conservative MP, Neil Hamilton, putting his name forward for consideration for the seat. Ukip were perfectly happy to have Hamilton as a member. Farage had got him on to the National Executive Committee and ensured he became the European Campaign Director. He then went on to become Deputy Chairman of Ukip.

Yet the party (Farage) has been determined to stop Hamilton being elected as either an MEP or an MP. Farage went on to demote him from Campaign Director, describing him as "a backroom boy". The Ukip leader, himself not certain of winning his seat in Thanet, was worried that Hamilton might become an MP, thus outshining him.

So it was that last Wednesday afternoon, a curious story emerged from Ukip, curious for the words used. Farage had personally intervened in Basildon saying that Kerry Smith should be "rehabilitated" and put on the shortlist. This was a move that would enable the members to reinstate Smith and torpedo Hamilton's efforts to win selection.

As belt and braces, Ukip released a letter concerning Hamilton's expenses to make it look as though he had engaged in some impropriety, thereby ensuring he would be rejected by Basildon. As it turned out, Hamilton spoke in favour of Smith because he respected the original democratic wish of the local party.

But it seems we can now see what Farage meant by having Smith "rehabilitated". On Sunday, it was revealed that Kerry Smith had been recorded making racist and homophobic comments during a telephone conversation.

Despite being outed in the Mail on Sunday, Smith attracted the support of Ukip notables who sought to excuse his outburst on the grounds that he was under the influence of "strong medication" and was "not thinking rationally".

Far be it for us to comment that "strong medication" is not necessarily an accompaniment to this state – when it comes to Ukip supporters – only hours later Smith was forced to tender his resignation, leaving the Basildon South candidature vacant once again.

This then is the latest Farage failure. Having first dumped Smith in order to stitch up the seat, he got burned by tokenism over Natasha Bolter. Then, despite knowing about his previous, was prepared to let Smith step back to within touching distance of becoming an MP.

Now Ukip is back to square one as the Basildon South selection descends into an utter Faragian farce. What a way to run a party – and what a party it is, containing such loathsome characters. This is a gilt edged example of how Farage fails Ukip and why the party is destined to fall away from its high water mark in the polls.

With nonsense like this defining the party that professes to be the leading Eurosceptic entity, we should be hoping that Ukip continues to obsess about immigration and stay as far away from the effort to leave the EU is possible. With charades like this, even the EU looks competent.