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UKIP no longer Peerless

Two Tory Peers defect to UKIP. Will Iain Dale predict "turmoil, crisis and meltdown" for the Conservatives?
Submitted by Tabman on 9 January 2007 - 10:47am | Categories:

It seems to be the season for defections. After Peter's story about a councillor joining the Lib Dems we get news that two Tory peers have defected to UKIP:

Two Tory peers have joined the UK Independence Party in protest at the Conservatives' lack of a "sufficiently Eurosceptic policy".
Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who switched with Lord Willoughby de Broke, said UKIP was the "only party telling the truth" about Europe.

He also said they had given up hope that the Tories would "toughen up on immigration, tax, education and so on".

The defections give UKIP its first Westminster representation.

Lord Pearson described the Conservative leadership of David Cameron as "going in the wrong direction".

Presumably the Cameroonies will wheel this out as further evidence that "the party has changed". However, given this is before Dave has even begun to put actual policies on the table, who's to say what future departures might occur?

One thing's for certain though. I'm sure Iain Dale won't be using the words "turmoil, crisis, or meltdown" in conjunction with this news!


Comments

On 9 January 2007 - 12:52pm, Tristan Mills wrote:

According to Wikipedia Lord Pearson was expelled from the Conservative party in 2004 for urging people to vote UKIP. Since then he's been an Independent Conservative.
Not being familiar with Tory party rules, I suppose he could have been a member of the Tories after expulsion if the expulsion was actually withdrawal of the whip...


On 9 January 2007 - 1:04pm, Tabman wrote:

Isn't membership of their local CA, rather than a national body?
________________________________________________
"Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures."
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.


On 9 January 2007 - 1:15pm, Julian H wrote:

Maybe they just want "freedom from over-crowding"


On 12 January 2007 - 9:28pm, ukip@home (not verified) wrote:

More about UKIP here:

http://e-ukip-home.blogspot.com/


On 15 January 2007 - 8:20am, UKIP@HOME (not verified) wrote:

http://e-ukip-home.blogspot.com/

The United Kingdom Independence Party like to trot out the misleading story that they were responsible for losing the Conservatives 27 seats during the 2005 General Election.

Using the same sort of UKIP logic then I would like to claim that the Conservatives caused UKIP to lose 451 election deposits - costing UKIP £225,500.00.

If people had voted UKIP instead of Conservative, then UKIP would have gained more votes and kept all those lost deposits.

I do hope any potential UKIP donors like seeing their money vanish down a black hole. You might as well use your cash for toilet paper for all the good it will do!