LONDON — The right-wing, anti-immigration party that backed Britain’s exit from the European Union picked a former top deputy as its new leader Monday.

The UK Independence Party named Paul Nuttall as its leader to replace Diane James, who resigned last month after less than three weeks in office because of internal squabbles and rivalries.

The announcement would seem to allow the acting leader, Nigel Farage, a polarizing figure who has made much of his new friendship with President-elect Donald Trump, to move to the United States, as some of his friends have suggested he might do.

In October, one leadership candidate, Steven Woolfe, ended up in the hospital after a fight with another party member at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.

Woolfe then said he would quit UKIP and rejoin the Conservative Party, claiming that UKIP was “in a death spiral’’ and was ungovernable’’ without Farage. Shortly afterward, Diane James, who was elected party leader in September, quit after 18 days, a casualty of the continuing divisions.

It will be up to Nuttall, 39, the party’s former chairman and leader of its delegation in the European Parliament, to try to drag the party back from what he called “the edge of a political cliff’’ last month.

To do that, Nuttall, a former history teacher, will also have to pacify Arron Banks, the British businessman who is UKIP’s main source of funds. Banks has raised the possibility of starting a new party.

The main problem that UKIP faces is that it had one goal: to secure and win a referendum on British membership in the European Union. Having done so in spectacular fashion in June — British voters opted to leave the union, in line with UKIP’s view — it is unclear what the party stands for now.

But its promotion of English nationalism, its stance against Brussels, and its calls for stricter control of immigration made it popular among many disaffected Labor Party voters, especially in the north and on the southeast coast of Britain.

Although the party won only one seat in the last parliamentary elections, in May, it received 12.6 percent of the popular vote, finishing third after the Conservatives and Labor.

Nuttall, who has represented northwest England in the European Parliament since 2009, has said that his party will “replace the Labor Party in the next five years and become the patriotic party of the working people.’’

New York Times