'Cameron is not serious about real change to the EU': Tory MP defects to UKIP with stinging attack on Prime Minister - as Farage warns more may follow

'Cameron is not serious about real change to the EU': Tory MP defects to UKIP with stinging attack on Prime Minister - as Farage warns more may follow

Douglas Carswell (right) said his position in the Conservative Party was untenable because the Prime Minister was not 'serious' about reform of the European Union
Prominent Tory backbencher Douglas Carswell this morning announced he was defecting to UKIP and resigning from Parliament - sparking a crunch by-election. Mr Carswell's decision is a major blow to David Cameron, coming just nine months before the next general election. The MP for Clacton, Essex, said his position in the Conservative Party was no longer tenable because Mr Cameron was not serious about reform of the European Union.

'Cameron is not serious about real change to the EU': Tory MP defects to UKIP with stinging attack on Prime Minister - as Farage warns more may follow

  • Clacton MP resigned from the Conservative Party and Parliament today
  • He said David Cameron was 'not serious about changes this country needs'
  • By-election likely to take place within the next six weeks, possibly October 9
  • Mr Carswell will become first elected UKIP Member of Parliament if he wins
  • But the defection has sparked a row because UKIP already had a candidate
  • UKIP leader Nigel Farage today claimed more MPs were willing to follow
  • But the PM today vowed to launch a 'very strong' campaign against UKIP
Prominent Tory backbencher Douglas Carswell this morning announced he was defecting to UKIP and resigning from Parliament - sparking a crunch by-election.
Mr Carswell's decision is a major blow to David Cameron, coming just nine months before the next general election, and risks encouraging further defections.
The MP for Clacton, Essex, said his position in the Conservative Party was no longer tenable because Mr Cameron was not serious about reform of the European Union.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage claimed many more MPs were 'considering their options' and would be watching the forthcoming by-election closely. 
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Douglas Carswell (right) said his position in the Conservative Party was untenable because the Prime Minister was not 'serious' about reform of the European Union
Douglas Carswell (right) said his position in the Conservative Party was untenable because the Prime Minister was not 'serious' about reform of the European Union
Mr Farage said: 'I’ve spoken to people in the Conservative Party and in the Labour Party who do not want Britain to be borderless and who think this is doing great damage to opportunities for working people.
'Douglas Carswell has done it. I don’t think he is going to be regarded as an isolated eccentric. There are other people out there considering their options.'
Mr Farage added: 'We’ve talked to Tory and Labour MPs over the last six months who very strongly support everything Ukip is trying to do. How many others will join will all depend on this by-election. This by-election is going to be a high-noon moment.'
Mr Carswell will stand for UKIP in the forthcoming contest which is likely to be held within six weeks, possibly October 9.
The Clacton MP entered Parliament in 2005, and has frequently rebelled over European issues. 
He has a strong personal following in his Clacton constituency after building up his majority in the nine years he has held the seat. He won his first election by just 920 votes, but was returned in 2010 with a 12,000 majority. 
The backbench MP will become the first ever elected member of Parliament for UKIP if he is returned.
His announcement this morning came just days after Mr Farage was selected to run for the party in the South Thanet constituency in next year's general election.
The Prime Minister today vowed to launch a 'very strong' campaign against Mr Carswell. 
Speaking in Scotland he told the BBC that Mr Carswell's action was ‘self-defeating’. He said: ‘It is obviously deeply regrettable when these things happen and people behave in this way. But it is also, in my view, counter-productive,’ he said.
‘If you want a referendum on Britain's future in the EU, whether we should stay or go, the only way to to get that is to have a Conservative government after the next election.
‘That is what until very recently Douglas Carswell himself was saying.’
He added: ‘Obviously I'll want to make sure (that there is) a very strong Conservative campaign in that seat, so they can be properly represented in this Government, and hopefully the next.’
UKIP leader Nigel Farage this morning welcomed Mr Carswell's defection from the Tories
UKIP leader Nigel Farage this morning welcomed Mr Carswell's defection from the Tories
UKIP is targeting a host of seats in the south and east of England in a bid to break into Parliament at the next election 
UKIP is targeting a host of seats in the south and east of England in a bid to break into Parliament at the next election 

UKIP TO TARGET A DOZEN SEATS 

UKIP is set to concentrate on 12 marginal constituencies – mostly held by Tories – in the next election.
In many of the target seats, Labour finished in second place in the last general election, meaning a surge in UKIP support could see the Tories losing crucial seats to Ed Miliband.
Labour advisers have calculated that Mr Miliband will become Prime Minister if UKIP wins more than nine per cent of the vote.
The list of target seats is based on leaked internal polling.
The seats UKIP are allegedly targeting are: South Thanet, Boston and Skegness, North Thanet, Sittingborne and Sheppey, Forest of Dean, Aylebury, Great Yarmouth, East Worthing, Thurrock, Grimsby, Eastleigh and Portsmouth.
Three of the seats are held by Tory ministers. Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, is Mark Harper, the welfare minister's seat, while Great Yarmouth is held by Brandon Lewis, the planning minister.
Aylesbury meanwhile is held by David Lidington, the Europe minister.
Just one of the UKIP targets – Great Grimsby – is held by Labour. The sitting MP at the moment is Austin Mitchell – but he is retiring next year amid complaints over party sexism.
The pro-EU Lib Dems are not immune from the UKIP threat. Mr Farage's party is targeting Eastleigh, where Ukip finished second in the 2013, and Portsmouth South, where Mike Hancock is under pressure over sexual harassment allegations.
In a bombshell press conference this morning, Mr Carswell lambasted the Prime Minister and senior Conservatives for not being ‘serious about real change’.
Among a list of criticisms, he insisted that the failure to take a stand against the European Union was at the heart of his decision.
‘They are not serious about real change. It's above all the failure to deliver on the promise of political reform that has driven me to be here today,’ he said.
‘Europe's the one continent on the globe that is not growing... Yet who in Westminster, who among our so-called leaders is prepared to envisage real change?’
Mr Carswell said he had been an enthusiastic cheerleader for Mr Cameron's Bloomberg speech, in which he set out proposals for an in-out referendum by 2017 if the Tories are in power after next year's general election.
But he said he did not believe the policy was ‘sincere’, saying the leadership wanted to secure ‘just enough’ to pretend change was happening.
‘No one cheered DC's Bloomberg speech more loudly than me... but there's been nothing since. They haven't thought it through.
‘There is a world of change and opportunity out there... ministers are simply not up to giving us the kind of realignment we need.’
Mr Carswell said it would have been easier for him to ‘muddle along’ as a Tory backbencher until next May, but he wanted to do the ‘honourable thing'.
‘As someone who's always answered directly to the independent-minded people of Essex, there is only one honourable thing for me to do,’ he said.
‘I must seek permission from my boss, the people of Clacton. I will now resign from Parliament and stand for Ukip in the by-election that now follows.’
UKIP’s only MP to date came when Castle Point MP Bob Spink defected from the Conservatives in 2008, although he subsequently stood unsuccessfully as an independent at the 2010 general election.
Mr Carswell was originally elected as the Conservative MP for Harwich in 2005, but was returned in Clacton in 2010 after boundary changes with a majority of over 12,000.
The Tories could be in for a major battle to retain the seat, as Mr Carswell is known as an independent-minded politician and is believed to have a significant personal following.
Following his announcement at the press conference, Mr Carswell said he wanted to see ‘fundamental change’ in British politics.
Mr Carswell   addresses a press conference in London this morning after being introduced by the UKIP leader Nigel Farage
Mr Carswell addresses a press conference in London this morning after being introduced by the UKIP leader Nigel Farage

WHO IS DOUGLAS CARSWELL? 

Douglas Carswell is a maverick backbencher who led calls for MPs’ expenses to be opened up to the public– but was then criticised after it emerged he claimed cash back for a ‘love chair’ for his home.
The libertarian Clacton MP regularly speaks out against the Government on Europe, the economy and Parliamentary reform.
He is popular among his colleagues and constituents and will be hard to shift in the forthcoming by-election.
Mr Carswell, who has made his name as an anti-sleaze campaigner, used his Parliamentary allowances to buy a £655 ‘Maximus’ love seat in deep moss brushed cotton, with extra fabric protection from sofa.com.
At the time Mr Carswell said: ‘It is true that I bought an armchair, sofa and some bedding, as well as a few other modest items of crockery and furniture. I believe this is entirely justified.’
‘Before making every claim, I have asked myself not only 'is it within the rules', but 'can I justify this to my local constituents'. In every instance I believe I can.’
Mr Carswell grew up in Uganda where his doctor parents worked. He was educated at St Andrews School, Kenya, before moving to the exclusive Charterhouse boarding school in Surrey.
He went on: ‘We have had a duopoly for many decades. Look at how the country has been run. It has been a competition for cliques to sit on the sofa.
‘We need choice and competition in politics.’
He said part of the appeal of Ukip was the fact it was a mass membership organisation that was the ‘property’ of its members, adding that if he believed the Tory leadership was serious about change he would not have defected.
But he insisted the decision had not been an easy one, adding: ‘I have been a member of the Conservative Party for all my adult life. It is full of wonderful people who want the best for Britain.
‘The problem is that many of those at the top of the Conservative Party are simply not our side. They aren't serious about the change that Britain so desperately needs.
‘Of course they talk the talk before elections. They say what they feel they must say to get our support when they want our support.
‘But on so many issues, on modernising our politics, on recall of MPs, on controlling our borders...on bank reform, on cutting public debt, on an EU referendum, they never actually make it happen.’
He continued: ‘All three of the other parties seem the same. They have got swathes of safe seats, they are run by those who became MPs by working in the offices of MPs.
‘They use pollsters to tell us what to tell the voters. Politics to them is about politicians like them. It is a game, a game of spin, position. First under Tony Blair, then under Gordon Brown, now David Cameron.
‘It is all about the priorities of which ever tiny clique happens to be sitting on the sofa in Downing Street, different cliques, same sofa.
‘Few are animated by principle or by passion. Those that are soon get shuffled out the way.’
A Conservative spokesman said: ‘This is a regrettable and frankly counterproductive decision. As Douglas Carswell said, the only way to get a referendum on the EU is to return a majority Conservative government.’
Leader of the House of Commons William Hague said Mr Carswell had previously admitted the only chance of real change in Europe was a majority Tory government.
‘It is a regrettable and deeply counterproductive thing to do, because the only chance of real change in Europe and upholding a referendum in this country in which the people of this country can decide to stay in or leave the EU is the election of a Conservative government next May, a majority Conservative government,’ he said.
‘Anything that makes that harder is damaging the chances of real change in Europe.’
Clacton Conservative Association Chairman Simon Martin-Redman added: ‘We are disappointed and surprised that Douglas Carswell has chosen to stand down. I am a deep seated conservative and so are my management team.
‘We feel let down and believe it's a regrettable and counter-productive decision since, as he himself has said, the only way to get a referendum on the EU is to return a majority Conservative government We are determined to keep this constituency Conservative.’

UKIP CHAOS AS ORIGINAL CLACTON CANDIDATE  VOWS TO FIGHT ON

Douglas Carswell's decision to defect from the Conservatives shocked Westminster today - but it also came as a surprise to UKIP's candidate for Clacton.
Roger Lord, 57, UKIP’s existing candidate for the seat, said he had 'no intention' of stepping down.
He told BuzzFeed: 'As far as I’m concerned I’m carrying on.
'If Mr Carswell wants to join us then he can get in the queue and hand out leaflets with the rest of us. Now that I’ve announced my campaign team, which now includes many members of his campaign team, his vote looks to be sinking quite quickly.
'I’ve been through dangerous situations in Pakistan and South America, and you negotiate them: I’ve had a 16-year-old shove a machine gun up my nose in Nicaragua. 
'I’ve faced bigger threats from real killers, and if they think they can walk up to me and push me then I’ll push back. I’ve never run away from anything.'
But a UKIP spokesman said Mr Lord 'has never been the by-election candidate for Clacton'. He was however the party's candidate in the next election.
‘By-election rules determine that the party is entitled to start with a clean slate of nominations for Prospective Parliamentary Candidates, with the final elected candidate being decided by the National Executive Committee.
‘There will not be a hustings in these circumstances as the immediacy of selection that a by-election warrants permits, in accordance with the party's constitution and sensible procedure, for the National Executive Committee to overrule and finitely determine who should represent the party for the campaign.
‘Roger Lord is a committed member of Ukip and we appreciate his contribution to the development of the party locally and hope that he understands the decision of the NEC to support Douglas Carswell in the defence of his seat, as a Ukip candidate.’
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