Quote:
Originally Posted by kernow
Britannist wrote:
As I wrote yesterday, if the Cameron-Conservatives link up with the europhile Liberal Dims in a hung Parliament (either in coalition or in a pact) tens of thousands of Conservative Party members will, in my view, defect to UKIP (doubling the size of UKIP if not more).
Kernow wrote:
We need Millions! Tens of thousands isn't enough to win seats!
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Just thought I would mention that when I referred to "tens of thousands" I meant actual Conservative Party members defecting to become UKIP members - I was not referring to people switching to UKIP at election time.
So if 20, 000 Conservatives quit the Cameron-Conservative Party in disgust at any Cameron-Conservative deal with the europhile Liberal Dims (in a hung Parliament) and joined UKIP - that would more than double the present membership size of UKIP (in other words the UKIP membership would rise from 16, 000 to 36, 000 - to reach a level about half the size of the Liberal Dim party membership now).
It would be a real boost for UKIP, of that there is no doubt.
Of course, to win many seats in the Commons UKIP would need lots of votes - but I was (earlier) trying to imply that if 20, 000 Conservative Party members joined UKIP it follows that a far greater number of Conservative voters (who are not members of the Conservative Party) would start voting UKIP.
I know for a fact that a large part of the Conservative membership is very unhappy about the EU and that the majority of Conservative members (and voters) are either eurosceptic or totally anti-EU. The Cameron-Conservative leadership is not reflecting all of their concerns about the EU threat.
Incidentally, UKIP could actually win a seat in the House of Commons on 10, 000 votes (or even less) in a three or four-way split in a particular constituency. It does not need millions of vots to get a group of MPs in the Commons. Dr. Paisley's DUP is the fourth largest party in the House of Commons (9 MPs) - and it achieved this on about 250, 000 votes (less than half the number of votes UKIP secured at the last General Election). The DUP succeeds by targeting seats carefully and working hard in them - all the time.
If UKIP wants a voice in the Commons it has to target several seats where it has performed well in recent years and start campaigning at local level - and not just before election time. All the 'small' parties in the House of Commons got there by targeting certain constituencies and 'working' those seats hard.