LONDON: British Prime Minister David Cameron suffered a heavy blow yesterday when one of his lawmakers, Douglas Carswell, announced he was leaving the Conservative Party to join the eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP).
Carswell is to resign his seat and stand as a UKIP candidate at an upcoming by-election which, if he wins, would make him their first elected member of the House of Commons.
Polls suggest UKIP could take a handful of seats and thousands of votes from the Conservatives in the 2015 general election, which may increase the chances of victory for the opposition Labour party and defeat for Cameron.
Experts say Clacton in the southeast of England is among the Conservative seats most vulnerable to being captured by the eurosceptics in the election.
Cameron called the move “deeply regrettable” and “self-defeating” and vowed the Conservatives would put up a “very strong” fight in the by-election.
But Carswell accused him of misleading voters over plans to claw back more powers from Brussels ahead of a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, which will take place in 2017 if the Conservatives win next year.
“My position became untenable,” said Carswell. “The Conservative leadership is not serious about change.”
He added that Cameron’s advisers had told him Britain will not vote to leave the EU in the event of a referendum, because “we will give them (the voters) just enough to persuade them not to”.
The prime minister promised the referendum under pressure from the powerful eurosceptic wing of his party and to win back voters from UKIP, which won May’s European Parliament elections, beating the Tories into third place.
That was the first British poll victory for a political grouping other than the Conservatives and Labour for more than a century.
“We have had a duopoly for many decades,” said Carswell. “We need choice and competition in politics.”
Carswell also slammed Cameron’s decision to rule out an electoral pact with UKIP, pointing out that the Conservatives had been less reluctant to form a coalition government with the centre-left Liberal Democrats following the 2010 general election which remains in power.
AFP
