Exclusive: Eight MPs in talks to defect to UKIP

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...g-to-Ukip.html

Exclusive: Eight Tory MPs in talks about defecting to UKIP

Eight Conservative MPs have held talks with senior figures in UKIP about defecting to the Eurosceptic party, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

UKIP treasurer Stuart Wheeler admits he has been secretly courting Tory MPs about defecting. He told The Daily Telegraph: 'I have had lunch secretly, in a completely confidential way, with eight different Tory MPs.'

The news came as the Tory party squashed talk from some of its MPs of a pact with Ukip to maximise the parties’ vote at the general election, expected in 2015.

The secret talks were disclosed by Ukip’s Treasurer Stuart Wheeler, the spread betting millionaire who used to be a major donor to the Conservatives, donating £5million to the party during the 2001 general election.

Mr Wheeler admitted that he had been privately courting disaffected Tory MPs to see if they might be tempted into switching sides.

He told The Daily Telegraph: “I have had lunch secretly if you like, in a completely confidential way, with eight different Tory MPs.”

The figure is twice as many as were previously thought to have to be in talks with Ukip about defecting.

Mr Wheeler said he has passed on the details to Nigel Farage, Ukip’s leader, but had not disclosed MPs’ identities to anybody else.

He said: “Each was promised by me that I would not tell any of the others, or anybody else except Nigel.”

Mr Wheeler, who was expelled from the Tory party in 2009 after donating £100,000 to Ukip, stressed that the talks with the eight were only preliminary and there was no guarantee that they would all defect.

Asked how many might be persuaded to cross the floor of the House, Mr Wheeler - who backed Liam Fox against David Cameron and David Davis in the 2005 Conservative leadership election - replied: “A few”.

The last serving Conservative MP to switch sides was Bob Spink, MP for Castle Point in Essex, who resigned the Conservative whip in March 2008 and who defected to Ukip in the following month. He lost the seat in the 2010 election to Tory candidate Rebecca Harris.

Attention has focused on Ukip’s attractions to the Tory right after a strong performance in the Corby by-election, where it came third ahead of the Liberal Democrats.

Polls show support for Ukip is at record levels, with seven to fourteen per cent of the vote, amid a surge in disillusionment with the EU.

Nigel Farage used Twitter to reject the idea of a pact with the Conservatives


The UKIP leader insisted he was not interested in a ministerial job in Westminster

An internal briefing note emerged on Monday in which Michael Fabricant MP suggested an electoral pact with Ukip in 2015. Mr Fabricant, a party vice chair for campaigning, suggested the strategy could help win at least 20 seats by dealing with “the continued haemorrhage” of votes to Ukip.

This would see the Conservatives and Ukip agreeing not to stand candidates against each other in some seats in return for a “cast-iron” guarantee of a “straight in-out referendum” on Britain’s continued membership of the European Union.

Mr Fabricant even suggested that Mr Farage – who also indicated he would be keen on pact if Education Secretary Michael Gove replaced David Cameron as Prime Minister - could be offered a seat in the Cabinet if the Conservatives win power outright in 2015.

Mr Fabricant was backed by fellow Tory MP Stewart Jackson, who joined calls for a “big, bold offer” to Eurosceptic voters as Ukip has the potential to do “serious damage” to his party at the election.

Mr Jackson said he supported the idea of a pact to “reunite the Conservative family on common ground”.

However Grant Shapps, the party’s chairman, said the party “categorically” will not enter any electoral pact with Ukip and played down the significance of mid-term success for Ukip and said an in/out referendum was not the right policy at this stage.

He told BBC Radio Four’s World At One programme: “I want to win the next election outright of course for the Conservatives so that we have an outright majority and we don't have to be in coalition.

“But I want to do that with Conservative candidates fighting and winning on their own ground and on their own terms and that is exactly what we are going to do. So I can categorically rule out any form of electoral pact with Ukip or anyone else.”

I think we are witnessing the collapse of the Conservative and Unionist Party unfold before us.

Although you have to wonder, will they be allowed to keep their kids?

And i've just spotted this has come out;

UKIP ‏@UKIP

UKIP Northern Ireland has been talking to a number of Councillors and MLAs in Northern Ireland and also a member of the Scottish Parliament

The ball of snow theory.

Thoughts?

[Inseriousity.]

I suppose what it boils down to then is putting principles over power and it saddens me that I have no faith in anyone in Westminister to do so.

[HOSKO02]

It's good to see another party elbowing its way into the political arena, anything that pulls the system away from a red V blue nonsense like the US circus show is only good news. The Tory's are effectively running the place anyway and I'd say Cameron is unworried of loosing any ground to the Lib Dems, who are certainly the quiet puppy in the corner, no real outbursts form them, just token opposition to keep its voting base (which decreases daily...)

Given this, they're taking a reactionary stance on the EU now, not too long ago David was spouting the joys of determined support or seeing the fight through to the end over the crisis to Barroso,, but given UKIPs rise, he's had to rethink this stance, the move to veto the 2014(2013?) budget was probably a stab at appearing stubbornly Thatcher-esque, but voters know the ruse, UKIP atleast keeps a consistent rhetoric against the federation (well, soon-to-be).

Wouldn't want to appear weak now would they?? Meanwhile the media does anything it can to delegitimise UKIP, but I'd anticipate that they'll probably welcome more Torys soon enough, it'd be simply expanding on the trend:

Ukip already has 12 members of the European parliament, including Roger Helmer, who was elected as a Conservative, but jumped ship in March this year. There are three other ex-Tory Ukipers in the House of Lords: Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the 21st Baron Willoughby De Broke, and Baron Stevens of Ludgate. While we're here, it is also worth noting the sole Ukip representative in the Northern Ireland Assembly, David McNarry, a former member of the Ulster Unionist party – and the party's presence in local government. Ukip now has 158 people serving on local councils, though the vast majority are concentrated at town and parish levels, a number regularly swelled by more revolting Tories.