EXCLUSIVE: Six Tory MPs to defect to Ukip if it wins Rochester and Strood by-election

Daily Express ^

[UKrepublican]

UP to half a dozen Tory MPs are ­planning to defect to Ukip if their party loses Thursday’s by-election.

Insiders claim Basildon and Billericay MP John Baron is the most likely to cross the floor.

Five others could also make the switch in the coming weeks, according to sources. Last night Mr Baron refused to rule out joining Ukip and would refer only to earlier comments he made on BBC’s Newsnight last month.

When he was asked on the programme whether he would defect, he replied: “You should never say never in politics.” However, he added: “My very strong preference is to stay within the Conservative Party.”

Ukip is on course for victory in the Kent constituency of Rochester and Strood on Thursday. One opinion poll gave the party a 12-point lead.

Last night Mark Reckless, the former Tory MP who sparked the by-election by defecting to Ukip, told the Sunday Express that victory could result in a realignment of British politics of the sort not witnessed since the collapse of the Liberal Party in 1922.

He said: “I don’t know what the result will be next Thursday and obviously I will be fighting for every vote but if Ukip can win here then Ukip can win across the country.

“I don’t know whether it is an earthquake or a tsunami but we are seeing the potential realignment of our political system and it is conceivable that, as the political system changed in the 1920s with Labour replacing the Liberals, we may see a similar change over the next decade.”

Mr Reckless said that Ukip is now able to attract the same level of support from Labour as it does from the Tories, echoing the findings of last week’s opinion poll which found that 40 per cent of those who voted Labour in 2010 were now backing Ukip.

He said: “We are getting almost the same degree of support from ex-Labour voters as we are from ex-Conservative voters but at least as striking is the ­support from people who did not vote in the last general election and who have not voted for a generation.

“I am getting support from a number of new voters who have never voted before who are in their 70s.

“I have had two people find me on Twitter, one lady who said she will never vote for anyone unless she knows them and she has got to know me and will support me, and another who said he never thought there was any point in voting until he saw what Ukip were ­saying as the agents of change and to break up the cosy cartel the other ­parties have had for too long.

“There are many Labour voters who would never have considered voting for me because I was a Tory. Now I am Ukip they are willing to vote for me to rep­resent them.

“The Tory label was holding me back. I feel now I have been set free.”

Ukip’s first MP Douglas Carswell, who won last month’s Clacton by-election, said he saw first-hand the support for Ukip among former Labour supporters as he joined Mr Reckless on the campaign trail last week.

He said: “I was in a traditional Labour ward and what really struck me and was reminiscent of my Clacton experience was that people that I just wouldn’t have even considered worth talking to to try and get them to vote for me are now willing to vote because the old party grounds are so contaminated in the eyes of the voters.

“In that traditional Labour ward there were a huge number of ex-Labour voters, who never in a million years would vote Conservative and who have given up on Labour, will now vote for Ukip.

“At times it took a while for me to walk down the street because there were so many people ­coming up to me.

“If things go the way I hope they will in Rochester on Thursday, then I think it is further evidence that Ukip are the first party in generations that have sussed out how to unlock the first-past-the-post system. The implications of that are huge.

“Clacton was seen as a very Ukip-friendly seat. Political gurus have looked at the numbers and have said Rochester is the 270th most Ukip- friendly seat. If we can do what the polls suggest we might do next Thursday, there are 269 other seats upstream of that which could be unlocked too.

“That is the potential, although nothing in life is ever certain.”

Despite Labour being under threat from Ukip, they have turned their big guns on David Cameron, accusing him of resorting to “desperate measures” to defeat Ukip at the by-election.

Rochester and Strood’s Labour Party candidate Naushabah Khan made the claim in response to last week’s appeal by the Prime Minister to supporters of Ed Miliband to vote Tory to keep out Ukip.

In a highly unusual move, Mr Cameron urged Labour, Liberal Democrat and even Green supporters to give their votes to the Tory candidate Kelly ­Tolhurst to prevent a “Ukip boost and all the uncertainty and instability that leads to”.

His demand followed an opinion poll commissioned by the former Tory party treasurer Lord Ashcroft, which put Ukip on 44 per cent, the Conservatives on 32, Labour on 17 and the Lib Dems on only two per cent. Ms Khan told the Sunday Express: “Cameron is increasingly resorting to desperate measures to try and pull in Conservative support.

“For us it is about getting people to go out there and vote with their heart and vote for what they believe in and in this election we think the only party that is talking about the real issues is Labour.

“I think there is an element of frustration with what this Government has done and people want to express that frustration and they are fed up.

“For some of them voting Ukip might be a way for them to do that but actually, when we are out knocking on doors, we are finding our support is still there and there are a lot of people who do want to support us.”

[UKrepublican]

By election on Thursday, UKIP expected to win - will be the second UKIP MP elected - honorable men who defected, but resigned and stood again.

UKIP Ping list - please let me know if you want on or off.

[samtheman]

You mean not all Brits are thrilled to have Sharia (with a special ok-to-rape-white-kid addendum) shoved down their throats by worthless, extremely-overpaid EU and Brit bureaucrats?

I wonder why?

And they get to pay for it out of their taxes too. What are they unhappy about?

I can’t figure it out.

[BobL]

“Rochester and Strood’s Labour Party candidate Naushabah Khan...”

Sounds like Labor hasn’t quite figured out why UKIP is so popular amongst their voters.

[SoFloFreeper]

Good.....although why don’t the Torys wake up and boot Cameron? Guy isn’t worthy of wiping mud off Margaret Thatcher’s boots.....

[ConservativeDude]

yes please on the ping list

this is extremely exciting

[Jack Hydrazine]

When will the UK start exporting Muzzies back to Islamic third world hellholes?

[tennmountainman]

I will be surprised if it is not more than 6.
UKIP is on fire.

[ExCTCitizen]

Will they be UKINO (UKIP in name only)?

[UKrepublican]

No, many of these are persistent rebels, some are even considered to the right of UKIP, so can only be a good thing.

[UKrepublican]

Lets hope so!

[UKrepublican]

They are too weak and too close to an election.

It it is the most bizarre and exciting time politically here!

[Nextrush]

The Tory Establishment that booted Margaret Thatcher for not being European Union friendly in 1989 is in charge.

[Jabba the Nutt]

"Mr Reckless said that Ukip is now able to attract the same level of support from Labour as it does from the Tories, echoing the findings of last week’s opinion poll which found that 40 per cent of those who voted Labour in 2010 were now backing Ukip."

If the GOP-e in DC weren't a club, but a political party, that actually wants to win elections and implement policy, they'd pay close attention to UKIP. This shows how a populist right-wing, pro-people movement can garner votes from across the spectrum. That if the GOP-e had a brain, they wouldn't have allowed them to be bamboozled by the Democrats/Media/Chamber of Crony Capitalists to believe that amnesty is a big issue for hispanics, that you are required to support amnesty to get hispanic votes and that without hispanic voters, you'd never win another election. All are lies.

If I only had a brain quoth the GOP-e

[Jabba the Nutt]

"The former Conservative Prime Minister blasted the 'sheer nastiness' of Nigel Farage's party and said it was 'anti-everything... anti-politics, anti-foreigner, anti-immigrant, anti-aid'."

Where's Major getting his talking points from, a garage sale of used Democrat Party talking points? The "Party of No" rides again in the UK.

When you've been on the outs, either in opposition (how negative) or a new party, you have to start with NO and even better HELL NO. You have to stop the car driving toward the edge of the cliff before you can make a U-Turn and start with implementing new policies. So, the criticism that that some party or politician is just against everything has never been convincing to me and I think to voters.

If everything is going wrong, being against everything is the correct thing to do. And stopping the wrong-headed policies will have an immediate positive impact.

[jocon307]

Good luck to them, many people on this side of the pond are pulling for UKIP.

[GeronL]

The Conservative Party needs to be replaced. Meanwhile the left side of the Tories will move to the LDP or Labour.

[dfwgator]

We need a USIP, over here.

[GeronL]

and a party that wants to make it illegal to criticize Sharia and homosexuals is losing votes? who would have thought?

[GeronL]

realignment

We need this in America too