Earlier today my colleague Andre Walker wrote about how the Conservative Party were hot on the heels of their latest defector Douglas Carswell MP, who joined UKIP earlier today.
Walker noted:
After the Carswell defection UKIP leader Nigel Farage headed to the pub to celebrate the biggest coup in recent Westminster history, but it seems the Tories have no plans to give up Clacton without a fight. Within hours of its establishment, the Tory “Clacton Volunteer Force” had added 1200 volunteers committed to defending the seat.
The group is now expected to flood the area in effort to uphold the shaky-looking 12,000 Conservative majority. Clacton volunteer’s are the brainchild of Conservative Party Director Mark Clarke, who has already taken hundreds of young activists to resource starved seats.
But just hours after their online campaign looked to be so successful, the group is somewhat becoming a joke amongst activists, with one source telling Breitbart London it resembled “more of a Clacton Volunteer Farce than a Clacton Volunteer Force”.
The source pointed to the fact that members were not joining of their own volition, but are being dropped into the Facebook group which many have subsequently opted out of. This, he claimed, is “Facebook spamming” in order to give the appearance of a grassroots campaign.
Furthermore, Breitbart London noted that the top comment on the page was from an activist who asked, “We’re campaigning for Douglas Carswell? right?”
The second comment reads: “sorry Mark,I am a Labour Party member now. Hope you are ok speak soon”.
Oops.