Conservatives are getting very rattled about UKIP.

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Wednesday, 15 August 2012

Conservatives are getting very rattled about UKIP.

So Daniel Hannan, the Conservative Party's only anti-EU MEP, wants an electoral pact with UKIP at the next General Election. This is significant.

It demonstrates the increasing popularity of UKIP and the likely impact it will have at the next General Election which does, after all, come just one year after the 2014 European Election that UKIP could win outright.

Don't forget at the last General Election, then-UKIP Leader Lord Pearson's private but direct offer of a pact to the Conservatives was utterly ignored by the party.

I don't think any such pact will happen next time round, for a myriad of reasons. Very few Tory candidates are actually anti-EU in terms of advocating withdrawal - they number about a dozen or so. UKIP is developing beyond a party that only cares about this issue anyway.

As for the notion of David Cameron instructing candidates to stand down in seats to give UKIP a clear run? I won't hold my breath.

The truth is that Daniel Hannan belongs in UKIP. The Conservative Party, as it left Stuart Wheeler, Lord Hesketh and Hannan's former colleague Roger Helmer, has left him. A Tory Prime Minister is in office and is presiding over a shambolic government that is increasing the amount we give to Brussels, that stands against grammar schools and which generally buys into the notion of a high tax economy.