This week David Cameron invited Ukip voters to ‘come home‘ to the Conservative party. ‘Come with us, come back home to us rather than risk all of this good work being undone by Labour,’ he pleaded at a campaign event.
However for all of Cameron’s talk, Labour sources claim that the Tories would be quite happy to form a coalition with Ukip after the election. Now, Jonathan Reynolds, the Labour MP for Stalybridge and Hyde, says that a pact has been made in Tameside, the Greater Manchester borough, between Ukip and the Tories. It’s claimed that the parties have agreed not to stand against each other in a number of wards for the local election in order to increase their chances of beating Labour.
It appears in my patch the Tories and UKIP have an electoral pact not to stand against each other in local elections. Two sides of same coin
— Jonathan Reynolds (@jreynoldsMP) April 9, 2015
There are five Tory candidates standing for Tameside District Council who face no Ukip opponent:
- Ashton Hurst
- Hyde Werneth
- Stalybridge South
- Longdendale
- Denton West
Meanwhile, there are Ukip candidates standing in four wards where there are no Conservative candidates standing:
- Audenshaw
- Dukinfield & Stalybridge
- Droylsden East
- Hyde Newton
Ukip deny there is a pact while a Tory source says that the allegations show how ‘desperate’ Labour have become:
‘In punting around this desperate idea Labour have shown the same diligence they demonstrated when they crashed the economyThere are no election pacts with UKIP. We are standing in 15 out of 19 seats in Tameside and while UKIP are standing in 12 – any coincidence is statistically probable.’
Still, the idea that by working together the two sides can increase their election chances will only fuel rumours of a Tory-Ukip coalition. After all Cameron and his cabinet ministers have repeatedly refused to rule out the idea.
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