Robert Kilroy-Silk, the talk-show host turned Euro MP, announced tonight he is to quit the UK Independence Party (UKIP), saying he was ashamed to be a member.

Mr Kilroy-Silk confirmed he would stand at the general election but he refused to say if he would be setting up a new party. He is widely expected to set up a party of his own called Veritas - Latin for truth.

The East Midlands MEP has been locked in a bitter dispute with UKIP bosses over his ambitions to lead the party he joined just last year. He has already resigned the party’s whip in the European Parliament.

Tonight Mr Kilroy-Silk said UKIP had betrayed millions of people by squandering its opportunity to become a major political party. People outside the party saw it as "a joke", he said, and it had no policies, no spokespeople, no energy, vision or idea of how Britain should be governed. He added that he would tell people not to vote for the party.

In a speech in Hinchley, Leicestershire, Mr Kilroy-Silk highlighted UKIP’s performance at last June’s local elections, where it quadrupled its number of MEPs. He said that could have been a "turning point" for British politics when the "silent, disillusioned majority" finally found its voice.

"But ...instead of reaching out to the millions who voted for them on June 10, UKIP’s leaders repeated the mistakes of the party’s past," Mr Kilroy-Silk said. "They went AWOL. They betrayed the millions who were looking for a very different kind of political leadership.

"They squandered a golden opportunity to reach out to those who have grown tired of the old parties with their lies, their deceit, their broken promises, their discredited pledge cards and their slanging matches. For that I, and countless others, cannot forgive them."

Mr Kilroy-Silk said he had tried to give the party a vision and sense of direction. But the "old guard" stood in his way.

"They had achieved their goal," he said. "They had got elected as MEPs. So off they went to Brussels, with expense-account lunches and generous subsidies, never to be heard of again. They were happy."

Mr Kilroy-Silk said he had not changed his beliefs or determination to see Britain withdraw from the EU. He added: "I have to say that the party is regarded by those outside it as a joke. I am ashamed to be a member. I cannot ask people to vote for it because it has no policies, no spokespersons, no energy, no vision, no idea of how Britain should be governed.

"I shall advise people not to vote for the party. To do otherwise will be to be dishonest, to pretend that the party has a purpose - when in fact it is a charade, an empty vessel.

Mr Kilroy-Silk said that while UKIP had "turned its back on people" he would not. "I will be standing at the next general election. I shall be leading a vigorous campaign for the causes I believe in, " he said. "And, unlike the old parties, we shall be honest, open and straight".

UKIP's chairman, Petrina Holdsworth, has denounced Mr Kilroy-Silk’s supposed plans for a new party as "extremely silly".

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