"poisonous war" within the party. She switched her allegiance to the UK Independence Party, but lost her seat a year later. She soon became UKIP's deputy chairwoman and head of policy, serving between July 2014 and February 2016. She was primarily responsible for writing the UKIP 2015 manifesto, having taken over the job from Tim Aker. Her success in producing a coherent and credible platform, after the debacle of the party's 2010 manifesto, and her confident presentation of the completed document, prompted speculation that she might stand for leader of the party were Nigel Farage to resign after the 2015 general election. She was obliged to deny that any such bid was contemplated. In 2014, Evans blamed poor UKIP support in London on the city's high number of "educated, cultured and young". She explained that she thought that in London, voters were "more likely, I think, to have read some of the negative press that's been about us, and I think they'd be more likely to believe it" whereas outside London people were more cynical about media reporting. In April 2015, Evans blamed the British housing shortage on increased demand caused by mass migration, a theory also repeated by Nigel Farage in election debates. Evans was the UKIP candidate for the Shrewsbury and Atcham constituency in the 2015 general election, finishing third with 14.4% of the total vote. After the 2015 general election On 8 May 2015, Nigel Farage recommended her as the Interim Leader of UKIP following his resignation, but within three days the National Executive Committee of the party had rejected the Farage resignation, and so he remained leader. On 18 June 2015, following comments made by Evans on the BBC's Daily Politics, Evans commented that the public had a "perceived divisive" view of Nigel Farage. The UKIP press office then withdrew Evans as a media commentator for UKIP, pending an internal inquiry. On 23 March 2016, while still on the UKIP party list for the 2016 London Assembly election, Evans was suspended for six months from the party by UKIP's internal disciplinary committee. She, in turn, began legal action in the High Court against the decision, on the grounds that rules were allegedly being abused. Her six-month suspension from the party lapsed on 23 September. UKIP leadership bid Evans launched her bid to become leader of UKIP in October 2016, following the resignation of Diane James after