On 20 September 2013, during its party conference, UKIP withdrew the whip from Bloom. At a party conference meeting he had jokingly referred to his female audience as . Subsequently, he got into a confrontation with journalist Michael Crick in the streets, hitting him over the head with the conference brochure, and allegedly threatened ITV reporter Paul Brand, by saying, "You treat me badly, you'll get a lot worse than that (Crick's slap) ... that is a threat to any journalist."