Mikeuk

Up and down the country, right now and all the time, there are Tory councillors falling out with their party, for a wide range of reasons.

We should be ready to pick them up.

I suggest that all Tory councillors in the county be should mailed with an invitation to defect. Most will put it straight in the bin but a minority of disafected Tories will be only too pleased to hear that a friendly home awaits them.

tamashi

And there is the nub of what is wrong with UKIP! Why is there this blinkered view that UKIP can be built from disaffected Tories. Every time we trumpet the defection of ANOTHER TORY we make sure disaffected Labour or Lib-Dem supporters never even consider UKIP as an alternative!

mkpdavies

The UKIP strategy isn't interested in attracting Lib Dem and Labour people. It is a two pronged method, aimed at

1) Making the EU look bad.
2) Undermining the Tories and making it hard for them to win.

The idea being in the end the Tories thirst for power will drive them into welcoming UKIP back into the fold and switch (for the first time ever) into being an anti-EU party.

It's a fair strategy. Not one I think will win, because I don't think the Tories really care about being in power, as long as they are one of the pet puppets, with all of the benefits that brings.

Also UKIP still is too small and weak to really threaten them.

__________________
http://brits4ronpaul.blogspot.com/
http://wokinglibertarians.blogspot.com/
http://lpuk.org

My ignore list

Labour, Blue Labour, Lib Dems

Mikeuk

Exactly. It is a strategy, and if it is struggling that's partly because it's not being pushed enough.

Tamashi's view is no strategy at all.What are you going to say? 'Well we don't really want Tory defectors (well some of us don't) but, hey, if you're Labour or Liberal why not come on over and balance our image'???

Of course you will get some maverick anti EU Labour and Liberal people coming over, but with the Tories you can turn mainstream party members. David Campbell-Bannerman, ex Bow Group Chairman is an obvious example.

I think you're wrong there. Winning is an obsession with the Tories. It always has been.

mkpdavies

__________________
http://brits4ronpaul.blogspot.com/
http://wokinglibertarians.blogspot.com/
http://lpuk.org

My ignore list

Labour, Blue Labour, Lib Dems

Britannist

I agree with you Mike - the membership of the Conservative Party (which includes, of course, thousands of elected councillors) consists of a large number of eurosceptics and anti-EU people.

Even if most do not join UKIP immediately, getting a letter from UKIP inviting them to join the party would remind them (Conservative councillors) of the party; would prompt some of them to visit the UKIP website to find out more about the damage the EU is doing to our country and the letter from UKIP would remind Conservative supporters/members about UKIP - doing the party's prospects at next year's EU Elections no harm at all.

Many Conservatives voted for UKIP at the last EU Election and UKIP sending a letter to Conservative councillors who voted UKIP at the last EU Election would encourage them to do the same next year (in the 2008 EU Elections -and in local elections before then).

As for the claim that publicy of Conservative defections to UKIP might put off Labour people or Liberal 'Democrat' supporters from joining UKIP: ex-Tories being in UKIP did not stop Labour supporter The Late Lord Peter Shore's widow from joining UKIP just as the fact that Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk MEP and UKIP-backer (up to December 2004) being a well known former Labourite did not stop 1.2 million Conservatives backing UKIP at the EU Election held on 10.6.2004. 'Conservative' MP Emma Nicholson MP defected to the europhile Liberal 'Democrats' but that did not appear to put off some Labour supporters from (unfortunately) choosing to vote for that party at the last General Election.

There should be no surprise that the Conservative membership might be perceived as being target number one for UKIP as regards recruitment attempts because there are clearly more anti-EU people in the ranks of the Conservative Party than there are among the membership of the Labour Party.

I would also mention that it may well be easier for UKIP to get people to defect from an opposition party such as the Conservatives than from the governing Labour Party. When Labour are booted out, some of its members are going to 'give up' and look for a party which wants change. There are many who think that eurosceptic Labour people would be much more likely to defect to or switch their voting allegiance to UKIP than to the pro-EU Cameron-Conservatives.

One advantage for UKIP is that in writing to each and every Conservative councillor in the country (apart from the well known obvious europhile ones) and inviting them to join UKIP it would not be possible for the Cameron-Conservatives (who are known to hate UKIP) to retaliate by writing to UKIP councillors asking them to defect to the Conservatives. Because, of course, there are hardly any UKIP councillors - and those that there are would laugh at such a letter from the Cameron-Conservatives in view of the fact that David Cameron so publicly insulted UKIP on 4.4.2006.

Britannist

The third paragraph of my last posting to this thread should, of course, refer to the 2009 EU Elections and not EU Elections in 2008.

g hall

For UKIP to succeed it needs the votes of former Labour and LibDim voters as well as the apathetic.
To say that only former Tories are needed is shortsighted at the very least and bl00dy stupid remember it was the skilled (C1) working class vote that voted Maggie in and Major out UKIP needs these people to vote for them

__________________
"That government is best which governs least."
"This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries".
"To be "matter of fact" about the world is to blunder into fantasy --and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful."
TANSTAAFL TANJ

Mikeuk

Nobody's saying anything of the sort. The UKIP 'protest vote' can come from anywhere, largely dependent on the social profile of the constituency.

I'm talking about councillors, not voters. Jumping ship from the Tories to UKIP is no big deal ideologically because both parties are - nominally at any rate - Eurosceptic, free-market and so forth.

Mail all the Labour and Lib-Dem councillors by all means but the Tories are likely to yield the bigest harvest. Of course there may be a principled few who have had it up to here with Cameron etc but UKIP needs to be more Machievellian than that...

Right now there are Tory Councillors fed up with the party because: they've been deselected; someone else got the plum committee chairmanship; someone else became Mayor; the party didn't back some cherished local project; their wives have been playing away from home with other Tories; somebody didn't show the right respect etc

Don't ask question. Grab them and grab the headlines.

Mikeuk

The Tories really are the 'stupid party'; much stupider than any of the others, including the BNP. They lap up everything they are fed and their one big deal is to 'win'. If you ask them what Conservatism is about they will parrot out some vacuous **** like 'Conservatism is about freedom' which - surprise! surprise! - is the party line.

What they would like to say is that they joined the party because they hate Johnnie Foreigner, but they know that isn't allowed.

Even compared with Labour, there is no democracy at all in the Conservative Party. All the decisions are made by the leadeship and that means that there is no easy answer to your question.

The best way to weaken the party and possibly even to bring about a grassroots revolution is to ensure that it does not succeed and that Cameron becomes a joke figure like Major or IDS.