Conservative Carswell defects to UKIP

[Isitmebut]

Modernizer Carwell won the new Clacton seat in 2010 with a large majority, heavily influenced by Ukip deciding not to stand a candidate themselves – so he has found a natural home with those that have a totally anti EU stance, but seems to forget that Ukip without a parliamentary majority cannot change British law to bring us out.

Claig …… after all your rants about right wing ‘modernizers’, you now own another one – so time for you to ‘jump’ the other way? lol

P.S. His defection was hardly cold, but by 1.30pm Wikipedia had been changed to reflect his defection. Who do you think was in a hurry to reflect his move, Ukip or the Conservatives? lol

Clacton is a "dead cert" for UKIP. Absolutely agree. There is no way the Tories can hold their 12000 majority in Essex. Even if they get up at the crack of dawn, they won't fool the people of Essex.

"UKIP’s specialist academic Matthew Goodwin tells Guido that Clacton is a “dead cert” for the party and that he had briefed Douglas Carswell about this before he made his decision to quit. He claims that the seat is the most ‘kippy in the country. Intriguingly Goodwin confirmed he had briefed the Parliamentary Conservative Party about where UKIP were the biggest threat and Carswell had been at that presentation. Along with many others.

When Guido asked Farage whether there were any more Tory MPs in the pipeline he refused to say: “You buy the chap one pint and he asks for a second.”

order-order.com/

Can I expand your post Isitmebut ?

"there are always changes to the Party promises to suit the popular vote, but after 20-years UKIP, 100ish-years the Labour Party and 200ish-years the Conservative Party should know by now WHAT they stand for."

I love Clacton but not UKIP.

Ha ha ha ... Totesamazeballs... re Farages “You buy the chap one pint and he asks for a second.” - in Essex if someone buys them a pint, they buy TWO back, so I hope the rest of the research is up to it.

But based on your last post Carswell, who KNOWS better than most that Ukip CANNOT bring the UK out of the EU, has jumped to Ukip for his own political/survival/MP salary/skin?

Such integrity, the parliamentary Conservative Party will miss him sooooo much...not.

My sole political support was to deliver leaflets in 2010 within a marginal constituency, but Clacton's a nice place I'd love to take on Mr Carswell, where do I sign up?????

They're desperate. Talk of Boris fighting it. But he would still lose in Essex. And then Daniel Hannan - what a joke, they haven't got a clue if they think he could beat UKIP in Clacton.

"What of that by-election? CCHQ had the option of stealing some of UKIP’s thunder by not fighting it, as Labour did when David Davis sparked his contest a few years ago. However, as their statement says, they will contest it “vigorously”. It’s a risk – defeat would be very painful. Who could do it? Some are suggesting this is Boris’ moment to become the man who saved his party, but given his wavering over standing even in a safe seat I’m not sure he’d take the risk. Others have suggested Dan Hannan, though I can’t see him standing against his best friend. In the absence of a celeb or a well known anti-EU figure, what ordinary candidate would want to take this fight on?"

www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2014/08/carswell-defects-to-ukip.html

I live in Essex, he's not the MP for my area but everyone is talking about it. Essex man is a pretty good indicator of electoral outcomes.

"Talk of Boris fighting it."

Not really. He announced yesterday the seat he'll be fighting in 2015. He's not going to dip into another one.

AuntieStella, they are desperate. They'll try anything. But as the Conservative Home article says

"Some are suggesting this is Boris’ moment to become the man who saved his party, but given his wavering over standing even in a safe seat I’m not sure he’d take the risk."

Just wait until all the PPEs and metropolitan elite are sent up to Clacton to interview the Essex public. They won't know what hit them. There's not a single luvvie around here. That's why it is God's own county. It is like their worst nightmare in Essex - common sense and straight-talk, absolutely no spin. They won't know what to do.

I don't trust Dave to ask us a fair IN/OUT unweighted question

This, exactly. Unless we have an IN or OUT option it will be farce.

"Some" All sounds very flaky.

I would however like to see what sort of awakening the out-of-touch metropolitans (of any hue) get when they have to campaign away from their narrow stamping grounds.

Seriously / I have no idea if UKIP stands a chance in clacton but even if they win that isn't an indicator of Wins to come elsewhere. Ukip will split the right vote and give votes to labour (effectively) in other constituencies. Thankfully my constituency is safe from the foamy mouthed, bigoted xenophobia of UKIP

ISITMEBUT

I repeat: The Conservative want us to stay in Europe.

I want to vote for a party that wants us out of Europe

So I am not going to help Cameron get in as it makes no difference to me whether Odd Millipede, Call me Dave or Claggy is running the show because none will deliver what I want.

Claggu will be nuked at the GE. Watching Odd screw up as PM will be quite amusing.

Who knows UKIP may even hold the balance of power in the 2025 election and put us out of this EU misery (altough I suspect we'll have been totally subsumed by Brussels by then and that the UK will have the same power within the EU as a parish council).

Boris is no martyr. He will not fight a seat he may lose. He'll stick to the safe seat in the True Bluse Sgires. One Tory name who may be able to do it is David Davis - a rare commodity a Tory conviction politician.

I have fantasies about Portillo standing for the Tories. He's grown a lot in popularity since he was defeated and stated making TV programmes. But there are just fantasy.

Agree, WetAugust, David Davis is the only good one left - old style real conservative, not a moderniser.

Part of Carswell's speech

‘We have had a duopoly for many decades. Look at how the country has been run. It has been a competition for cliques to sit on the sofa.

‘We need choice and competition in politics.’

He said part of the appeal of Ukip was the fact it was a mass membership organisation that was the ‘property’ of its members, adding that if he believed the Tory leadership was serious about change he would not have defected.

But he insisted the decision had not been an easy one, adding: ‘I have been a member of the Conservative Party for all my adult life. It is full of wonderful people who want the best for Britain.

‘The problem is that many of those at the top of the Conservative Party are simply not on our side . They aren't serious about the change that Britain so desperately needs.'

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2736598/Tory-MP-Douglas-Carswell-defects-UKIP-resigns-Parliament-spark-crunch-Essex-byelection.html

‘All three of the other parties seem the same. They have got swathes of safe seats, they are run by those who became MPs by working in the offices of MPs.

‘They use pollsters to tell us what to tell the voters. Politics to them is about politicians like them. It is a game, a game of spin, position. First under Tony Blair, then under Gordon Brown, now David Cameron.

‘It is all about the priorities of which ever tiny clique happens to be sitting on the sofa in Downing Street, different cliques, same sofa.

‘Few are animated by principle or by passion. Those that are soon get shuffled out the way.’

Stirring stuff and spot on. It's about principle. The people of Essex have got it in spades, but the spin meisters and shysters recoil from principle in terror like Dracula recoils from a clove of garlic.

WetAugust ….. you are correct that ALL three main political parties in principal WANT to remain within the EU, but the difference is that the Conservatives CANNOT agree with staying in an UNREFORMED EU that is moving ever closer to a federal state – but will offer the people a guaranteed 2017 in/out Referendum for the in/outs to debate their case before hand.

An UNREFORMED EU goes against every Conservative principal of how to build a SUSTAINABLE UK ECONOMY, as evidenced by the changes they made since 2010 to the ‘mini’ EU inefficient, expensive, bureaucratic, fat government – with ever higher taxes, and generally anti business UK economy, they inherited.

The UK due to coalition reforms is the fastest growing economy of the main industrial nations, the EU is a stagnant economic basket case, as weighed down by all the ‘stuff’ the UK economy had in 2010, and they didn’t have our £157 billion annual overspend to try and sort out.

In a Conservative Referendum, it matters not a jot what political parties want, THE PEOPLE DECIDE.

A vote for Ukip, who PROMISES to bring the UK out of the EU is on a Farage LIE, ensures the next government in 2015 will be formed by Labour, so guarantees we head further to an EU superstate.

Claig - I would beVERY careful about using the word Shyster. Some consider it to be antisemitic.

Norman Tebbit talking common sense on R5. basically saying tell us what your non negotiable EU wish list is for the reforms you want. If you don't get your wish list then promise to campaign for a LEAVE vote. Tebbit reckons that would satisfy the UKIP voters.

Interesting.

Thanks, rf241, but I am not being antisemitic by using it. I am referring to Cameron's team of spin doctors and policy wonks.

Yes rf241. Some stupid and misinformed people may think that Shyster is anti Semitic and they would be wrong. It's from the German sheissen to shit to defecate. The only very remote suggestion that it may be anti semiotic come a from uneducated people who confuse the word with Shylock, who was a Jew in the Merchant of Venice

yet another example of misplaced political correctness

God it's so depressing that there are UKIP voters out there thinking that they are part of some kind of revolution. They're part of a ideology-lite, fearful of 'other', racist brigade.

Feel like I'm trolling now (I probably am...)

The problem is that UKIP stands for so much more than an honest debate about Europe (I'm def pro Europebut I think we have the right to choose whether we, as a nation, still want to be a part of it given the wide ranging powers and issues within Europe). UKIP stands for bigotry masquerading as economic concerns - immigration isNOT a huge problem contrary to what they bang on about.

Re shyster - it isn't exactly misplaced political correctness is it? Simply that i am wrong (or rather stupid and uneducated ).

'Tebbit reckons that would satisfy the UKIP voters.'

It won't satisfy UKIP voters, because UKIP is now about much more than Europe. We no longer have faith in the Tories - they are just modernisers - and lots of us lost faith in Labour years ago. Millions of people want real change and an end to spin. Nothing can stop this public revolt against the spinners from Oxbridge in power because the public no longer think that they are on our side. That is why it doesn't matter who the Tories send to Clacton, they won't stand a chance, so great is public disaffection with them.

The BBC and the metropolitan elite don't really understand what is happening and teh depth of teh disenchantment with the spinners. The luvvies thought they could just reform our PMQs to get us re-engaged, but the divide between the rulers and the people is so wide that tampering with PMQs won't cut it.

Carswell ill win easily and then the avalanche will start and the panic will set in and the people of the country will take the lead of the people in Essex and the earthquake will continue to rock the foundations of the safe seats the spinners thought they had.

Then there may be even more defections and the UKIP steamroller will roll on.

Claig- what IS happening? What is it that has caused such disenchantment and how can UKIP fix it? Why can't the other parties?

Tory MP Bernard Jenkin on BBC Look East now.

Said that Carswell is touching a public mood. He said

"People like to see someone acting out of principle and we as a party need to act out of principle and we as a party need to learn something from this and make sure our policy is clear and principed in our manifesto"

That is their problem, we no longer trust them or think they have any principles. We think they are just modernisers and spinners who are not on the side of the people. That is why they will lose.