‘Why I’m back with the Conservatives’
MARK Reckless has given a damning verdict on the future of Ukip as he revealed why he made the decision to sit with the Welsh Conservatives in the Assembly.
Yesterday afternoon, after almost 24 hours of speculation, the former Conservative MP who defected to Ukip in 2014 announced that he was abandoning the party.
His decision comes less than a year after being elected as Ukip regional list member in the Senedd elections last May.
“We achieved our ambition – so for Ukip it was job done,” Mr Reckless said.
Defending himself against demands from Ukip and its party leader Neil Hamilton that he should stand down, Mr Reckless said that the party were a spent force who were losing support to Theresa May’s Conservatives.
He said: “Many of the people who voted Ukip in south east Wales last year are going to vote for the Conservatives – they are the party that are delivering Brexit.
“I think if you were to rereun that election again you would see a totally different outcome with two Conservatives elected and just one Ukip member from south east Wales.”
“People are, like me, leaving Ukip and coming over to the Conservatives now we have achieved what we wanted which was a successful referendum to leave the EU.”
His views mirror his fellow ToryUkip defector, Douglas Carswell, who has employed Mr Reckless as a researcher and was Ukip’s only MP until he announced he was leaving the party nine days ago.
But unlike Mr Carswell, who will sit as an independent MP in Westminster, Mr Reckless has joined the Welsh Conservative group in Cardiff Bay, but has not rejoined the party.
Defending his decision not to resign – which would see the next UKIP member on the regional list take his place in the Assembly – Reckless said he would “love to hold a by-election as I did previously”, referring to his earlier defection from the Conservatives to Ukip.
He said: “Unfortunately, the proportional representation system we have in Wales doesn’t allow that.”
His dramatic defection allows Andrew RT Davies’ party to claim it is the second largest in the Senedd.
While the Assembly has no formal position of ‘leader of the opposition’ it will increase the Welsh Conservative’s influence in the chamber and see them given more of an opportunity to shape its business.
Mr Reckless says he made his decision to defect so that Wales could have “the opposition it deserves”. He said the country had been failed for too long by a Labour government propped up by Plaid Cymru, and that only the Conservatives could force the Welsh Government to listen.
The Assembly’s website, as of last night, lists Mr Reckless as one of three independents along with former Ukip AM Nathan Gill and former Plaid AM Dafydd Elis-Thomas.
It shows the Welsh Conservatives has having 11 AMs and Plaid as also having 11 AMs, although they lose the vote of Presiding Office Elin Jones.
But letters exchanged betweeen Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies and Presiding Officer Elin Jones show that Ms Jones has said she will allow Mr Reckless to join the Conservative Assembly group without being a member of the party.