BIRMINGHAM, United Kingdom — Conservative Party MEP Daniel Hannan has taken to the Daily Mail today to insist that an electoral pact between UKIP and the Tories is the only way to stop the Labour Party taking control of the British government at the general election next year.
On the second day of Conservative Party Conference, Hannan, who is not in attendance this year, has written in the Mail: “Many Conservatives responded with irrational rage to the decisions of Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless to join Ukip, calling them egoists, liars and worse.”
Instead, he urges Mr Cameron and Mr Farage to come to an arrangement, claiming that for the Tories, a UKIP MP should be better than a Labour one, and that for UKIP, the idea of a European referendum in 2017 should be enticing.
“‘We don’t do pacts,’ say some Tories. Nonsense. Conservatives had pacts with the Liberal Unionists, the ‘Coupon’ Liberals of 1918 and, for six general elections after the Second World War, the National Liberals. We had such a deal as recently as the last election with the Ulster Unionist Party.”
The article comes just hours after Mr Cameron told UKIP defectors, “We’re coming for you” and after Tory Chairman Grant Shapps called the newest defector Mark Reckless a liar.
Mr Hannan is known to be close friends with Mr Reckless and Mr Carswell, and speculation in the media suggests that Mr Hannan may be becoming lonely in the Tory Party.
He wrote:
“Seeing my old friend Mark Reckless in another party is sad. A devoted and patriotic MP, he has just taken the difficult decision to leave the Conservatives for Ukip.
“But the real sadness is that there should be two such parties in Britain, their rivalry retarding their shared objectives.
“Combined, the Conservative and Ukip vote comes to nearly half the national total. Yet, as things stand, Ed Miliband is likely to become Prime Minister with around 35 per cent support.
“All right, it’s not quite that simple. The electorate is not a series of blocs that can be lumped together. I sometimes find myself having to correct interviewers who ask me about Ukip ‘taking your votes’. They’re not our votes, I say; they belong to the people who cast them.”
Journalists here at the Tory Conference are enquiring over Mr Hannan’s longevity in the Conservative Party, though Breitbart London understands he is interested in retiring from politics in the coming years.
Mr Hannan has built a large celebrity following amongst young right wingers in the UK and America based on his eloquent speeches he has given in the European Parliament.
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