Nigel Farage has called on Conservative MPs in four northern constituencies to consider whether they would be better off standing for his Ukip party at the general election.
He singled out seats predicted by the Manchester University academic Matthew Goodwin (subscription) to be ones where the MPs have no chance of winning as Conservatives in May 2015: Amber Valley (Nigel Mills MP), Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), Bury North (David Nuttall) and Dudley South (Chris Kelly).
Speaking after Mark Reckless became Ukip’s second MP thanks to his win at the Rochester and Strood byelection, Farage said: “If you are a Conservative MP sitting on a small majority against the Labour party, and the further north of London you go, the bigger problem this becomes. You know you’ve lost next year.
“The Conservative party is literally dying in the urban north, the way it has in Scotland. It is for you to do the guessing game. Matthew Goodwin has already published a list of the Tory MPs who have no chance of winning on a blue rosette but might have a chance on a purple rosette. So let’s see what happens.”
Asked whether those MPs were the ones he had spoken to about defecting, Farage said he could not remember. He also confirmed that he had spoken to Adam Holloway, the Eurosceptic Tory MP for Gravesham, but again, could not recall when, and would not elaborate on their conversation.
Farage, running on just 42 minutes’ sleep, gave the interview to newspapers after attending a “hell of a do” to celebrate the victory of Reckless, whose defection from the Conservatives triggered the byelection. It was held in the Tap ‘n Tin nightclub in Chatham, and attended by more than 300 Ukip supporters, as well as members of the Official Monster Raving Loony party.
While refusing to name names, Farage said he believed more Conservative and possibly Labour MPs would defect, but that this was more likely to happen after Christmas.
“I would be very surprised if there weren’t defections of MPs between now and the general election, simple as that.”
He said Ukip was targeting “a few dozen” seats in 2015, and had been asking some locally picked candidates to step aside if they failed to pass the party’s rigorous central selection tests.
Speaking from Ukip’s Rochester and Strood headquarters, Farage revealed that the byelection had been won in the traditional Labour area of Strood and lost in the more typically Conservative area of Rochester, which still delivered the party the overall seat.
“I would love a Labour defector because that would actually reinforce the message as to why we won this byelection yesterday,” he said. “We didn’t win in Rochester yesterday, Rochester was very difficult for us yesterday. Where we did win was in Strood and we won very well in Strood, and we did that, by picking up, yes, some Conservative votes in Strood but a lump of Labour votes in Strood and interestingly quite a significant number of non-voters.
“So we won this in what traditionally has been the Labour part of the constituency and that’s something which, until Heywood and Middleton, I don’t think people really understood, just how powerful potentially our message was with Labour voters.
“A high-profile Labour defector would be terrific. Have we spoken to a few Labour people? Yes we have. I don’t think Old Labour voters, when they look at the Labour leadership, even recognise that party as being part of their own tribe.”
