Nigel Farage’s suggestion of joint UKIP / Tory candidates at the next general election is part serious offer, part mischief-making. Farage knows that if the polls stay the same this will be an appealing offer to Tory candidates. As one leading Eurosceptic Tory MP said to me when I put the idea to him, ‘the maths says is has got to be done.’
There are an increasingly large number of Tory MPs who fear that they can’t hold their seats unless they can win back the voters and activists who have gone over to UKIP. They will be attracted to the concept of an electoral alliance with UKIP. But the Tory leadership would never accept this offer: the idea of their MPs belonging to more than one party is — for understandable reasons — not acceptable to them.
I wouldn’t, though, rule out joint candidates entirely. The Referendum Party’s success in getting Tory candidates to cross the leadership in 1997 shows how politicians are prepared to defy the line to boost their chances of getting to Westminster. Remember that in ’97, David Cameron himself went well beyond the party policy on the single currency in an — unsuccessful — attempt to see off a Referendum Party challenge.
Farage is well aware of this history. He knows the chaos that would ensue if just ten or twenty Tory associations took him up on his offer. This intervention is yet another reminder that Cameron will have to make a big offer on Europe long before the next election if he is not to be outmanoeuvred.
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