Will more rats leave the sinking Tory ship?

John Baron [Image: BBC].

John Baron [Image: BBC].

According to the Daily Express, Six Tory MPs [will] defect to Ukip if it wins [the] Rochester and Strood by-election.

If it’s true, doesn’t it say everything you need to know about the kind of person who joins the Conservative Party these days? They’re not interested in helping anybody else. They’re not even interested in helping the party that got them into Parliament. They only want to help themselves.

The Express reckons John Baron, MP for Basildon and Billericay, might be next to cross the floor. If this is true, it will be just about the only thing he’ll have done that is worthy of public attention since he became an MP in 2001.

According to Wikipedia, he supported David Davis in the 2001 and 2005 Tory leadership elections (no fan of Cameron, then), and he has been consistent in opposing wars in Iraq and Libya. Then there’s this: “In June 2012, Baron delivered a letter, signed by over 100 Tory MPs, to the Prime Minister David Cameron urging him ‘to place on the Statute Book before the next General Election a commitment to hold a referendum during the next Parliament on the nature of our relationship with the European Union’.”

That’ll be the UKIP connection, then.

It seems a bit tenuous, though. Also, this is the paper that reckons 40 per cent of Labour voters are going over to UKIP, which is a bit surprising. Why would anyone support a party whose members like to call Labour supporters “You lefties”?

Look at what Mark Reckless, whose defection to UKIP triggered the by-election, had to say: “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.”

What a lot of bilge.

The verdict? Well, we’ll only find out if UKIP wins, won’t we?

Postscript: Meanwhile, UKIP has received the dubious support of the neo-fascist group Britain First.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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One Comment

  1. Mark Potter-Irwin November 21, 2014 at 12:24 am - Reply

    Two out of three for John Baron then,
    ” he supported David Davis in the 2001 and 2005 Tory leadership elections (no fan of Cameron, then), and he has been consistent in opposing wars in Iraq and Libya. Then there’s this: “In June 2012, Baron delivered a letter, signed by over 100 Tory MPs, to the Prime Minister David Cameron urging him ‘to place on the Statute Book before the next General Election a commitment to hold a referendum during the next Parliament on the nature of our relationship with the European Union’.
    ” But if he comes out and decides to be a Kipper he will have lost his credentials as a anti-war protester. (Did I see him on an anti war demo I went to?…doubt it.

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