‘Tory defector joins UKIP in blow to Conservatives’

A former Conservative parliamentary candidate has joined UK Independence Party (UKIP) after disagreements with his former party, in the Hull West and Hessle Constituency.

Mike Whitehead’s defection is another stumbling block for the Tories, who maintain "this man is not our candidate for Hull West & Hessle. He was sacked last week. He refused to support the local Conservative council candidate and so we wrote to him last week to say that his position was untenable and could not stand for us at the general election. We were already selecting a new candidate for this constituency.”

Whitehead was the Conservative councillor for East Riding Council until his resignation making him the second councillor from that district to defect and join UKIP.

While the Tories are playing this latest defection down, analysts are convinced this is a huge blow for the current prime minister and a massive bonus for UKIP leader Nigel Farage and his party, especially after the negative press they have been receiving in recent weeks.

The Hull West & Hessle seat is a safe Labour seat with the former home secretary Alan Johnson winning by a comfortable 5,700 majority in the 2010 general election.

While the Conservatives say they are not perturbed by the number of candidates defecting to UKIP, analysts say it is definitely something they need to address.

The shadow cabinet office minister, John Trickett says, "UKIP and the Tories increasingly share the same people as well as the same policies. Both stand for increased health service privatisation, extreme spending plans which threaten the NHS and further tax breaks for those at the top."

Farage called the defection “another hammer blow to Tory pretensions in the north of England.” But the Conservatives say, "This is typical UKIP - cynical, misleading and utterly calculating to try and score political points."

MW/GHN

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