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Originally Posted by mkpdavies
He resigned the whip actually. Thus defecting is the right word.
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BBC NEWS | Politics | Deselection row MP leaves Tories
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Mr Spink said he had resigned the whip because the party had not taken action to sort out the association.
But the party said it withdrew the whip when he threatened to resign, in order to maintain "party discipline". The Castle Point MP said he would fight the next election as an "independent Conservative".
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It looks like he was effectively deselected by his Tory constituency and then it is a little blurry about whether he left or was kicked out by the national party.
And doesn't defection require leaving one party and then joining another? Spink became independent on the 12th March it would appear and then joined UKIP on 21st April over a month later. Hence he didn't leave the Tories in order to join UKIP.