DONCASTER: British Prime Minister David Cameron suffered a blow yesterday as Mark Reckless defected to UKIP, the second Conservative backbencher to join the eurosceptic party in two months.
The lawmaker’s announcement was greeted with rapture at the populist United Kingdom Independence Party’s annual conference, where delegates jumped out of their seats cheering the switch.
The defection comes just one month after fellow Conservative backbencher Douglas Carswell also left Cameron’s centre-right party for the anti-European Union, anti-immigration UKIP.
“The leadership of the Conservative Party is part of the problem that is holding our country back,” said Reckless, saying they were breaking their election pledges.
“Today I am leaving the Conservative Party and joining UKIP,” said the 43-year-old, sparking jubilation at the conference in Doncaster, northern England.
“We all know the problem of British politics. People feel disconnected from Westminster. But disconnected is too mild a word. People feel ignored, taken for granted, over-taxed, over-regulated, ripped off and lied to.” Reckless entered parliament at the last general election in 2010, representing Rochester and Strood, in Kent, southeast England, taking 49 percent of the vote.
He said he had not been able to keep his election promises while remaining in the Conservative ranks.
Reckless said he had pledged to slash immigration, cut the budget deficit so as to reduce taxes, decentralise power, introduce more accountable politics and to help get Britain out of the EU.
“I’ve found that it is impossible to keep those promises as a Conservative, and that is why I am joining UKIP.”
Carswell resigned his seat on joining UKIP and will fight a by-election on October 9. Reckless said he would likewise recontest his seat.
UKIP topped the vote at the European Parliament elections in May. Opinion polls suggest they could take a handful of seats and thousands of votes from the Conservatives at the May general election, which may increase the chances of victory for the opposition Labour Party led by Ed Miliband under Britain’s first-past-the-post system.
The timing could barely be worse for Cameron as the Conservatives’ annual conference begins today in Birmingham, central England.
If Cameron remains prime minister after the May general election, he has promised to attempt renegotiating Britain’s EU membership terms, then hold an in-or-out referendum on the outcome by the end of 2017.
“I have reluctantly reached the view that he is doing so purely as a device,” Reckless said, fearing “a bogus renegotiation followed by a loaded referendum”.
“We want a straight referendum, an honest referendum. In or out, no fudge, no conjuring trick.”
He also blasted the “insanity” of Britain’s immigration system and on the EU added: “We are more than a star on somebody else’s flag.”
A Conservative spokesman said Reckless’s defection was “completely illogical”.
“He says he wants action on a European referendum, tax and immigration,” the spokesman said.
“The only party capable of delivering on these issues is the Conservative Party — and a vote for UKIP is a vote for Ed Miliband.” The Conservatives are in coalition with the smaller Liberal Democrats — a source of frustration for the traditional Conservative right, which feels shackled by the centrist party.
Reckless, a former lawyer and economist, had made a name for himself as one of the Conservatives’ most rebellious backbenchers. In 2012 he led a rebellion which inflicted the first parliamentary defeat on the coalition. AFP
