Tory MP strikes election pact with Ukip saying he agrees on burka ban
A TORY MP has taken the unprecedented step of agreeing to an election pact with the UK Independence Party after saying he agrees with Ukip on Brexit, HS2, axing foreign aid targets and a burka ban.
Philip Hollobone signed the agreement this week and Ukip sources said the party was in talks with other Tory candidates about similar arrangements.
The announcement came as the launch of Ukip’s election campaign was disrupted by anti-racism activists and the party’s leader Paul Nuttall said he would refuse to quit if the party failed to win any seats on June 8.
Ukip has agreed not to oppose Mr Hollobone, the Conservative MP for Kettering, who won a 12,590 majority at the last general election.
Ukip “will advise its members, activists and supporters to vote for Philip Hollobone”.
Mr Hollobone has agreed to meet Ukip members “every three months or when mutually agreed to discuss the progress of Brexit and provide a forum for questions, answers and feedback relating to Brexit”. The deal was hammered out between Mr Hollobone and Jonathan Bullock, who was the Ukip candidate at the last election, coming third behind Labour with 7,600 votes – 16.1 per cent.
Mr Bullock told The Daily Telegraph that he hoped other Tory MPs would follow suit. “We came to the conclusion that if Philip is prepared to sign up to our policies, he is our candidate in all but name,” he said.
“This could be a template for other MPs to do the same. Some are already calling it the Kettering Agreement.”
Mr Hollobone – who turned down an approach to join Ukip in 2014 – said he had not told the Conservative Party nationally about his arrangement.
The written arrangement did not break any party rules. He said: “Now we have got the referendum we felt there is no point in fighting each other.”
At Ukip’s launch Mr Nuttall said the party would contest the vast majority of seats and would not stand against Brexit-supporting candidates who backed its aims.
Mr Nuttall also said he would not resign if the party had an unsuccessful election and failed to win a handful of seats.
The Ukip leader will say today which seat he will fight. Sources have told The Daily Telegraph he will contest Boston and Skegness, a seat that was won for the Conservatives by former Telegraph journalist Matt Warman at the last general election.
It came as a new poll suggested that nearly half of Labour voters are prepared to desert the party, putting the Conservatives on course for an even bigger victory than forecast.
YouGov said that 48 per cent of Labour’s voters are either planning to switch their allegiance to another party or are undecided about whether to back leader Jeremy Corbyn. The EU referendum had caused a “significant realignment” in British politics, with Labour facing a “dramatic” drop in its support as Leave voters move to back the Tories and Remain voters back the Liberal Democrats.
The poll also found that Ukip is struggling because its voters are backing the Conservatives and the party has failed to pick up votes elsewhere.
That came as the shadow chancellor John McDonnell yesterday refused to rule out proposing Ed Miliband’s controversial mansion tax policy in Labour’s manifesto.
A separate poll said the Tories were on course to pick up seven seats in Scotland, including the constituency held by the SNP’s Westminster leader Angus Robertson.
The Prime Minister is expected to claim at a campaign rally in Aberdeenshire that when “Scotland is flourishing, the rest of the United Kingdom is flourishing too”.
A Tory MP has stood down after being accused of telling a class of A-level students that “homosexuality is wrong and a danger to society”.
Andrew Turner has quit as Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight after making the comments during a visit to Christ the King College, in Newport on the island. A Conservative source said: “There’s no place in the party for such views.”