Carswell defection brings Tory pact with Ukip a step closer

The Daily Mail is reporting that Douglas Carswell took his decision to defect to Ukip after being entertained to dinner by Stuart Wheeler, the millionaire who is bankrolling Nigel Farage's party, and that eight other eurosceptic Tory MPs, similarly wined and dined by Wheeler, could be ready to defect too.

The Mole's inquiries suggest this is wrong - and that the agenda at these dinners was not defection but the idea of an electoral pact between the Conservatives and Ukip.

Such a pact would allow either for a single candidate to represent both the Conservatives and Ukip (exploiting new rules which for the first time let candidates name more than one party on a ballot paper), or for each party to agree not to stand against each other in certain seats.

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A pact, some Tories believe, is the only solution if they are to ensure that Ukip doesn't simply split the right-of-centre vote in many seats and allow Labour an easy route to power at the May 2015 general election.

David Cameron is currently dead set against such a pact. But if the October by-election caused by Carswell's defection is won by Ukip – and there were signs in last night's many vox pops that locals might be happy to back Ukip in the by-election, even if they decide to return to the Tory fold at the general election – then the calls for an electoral pact from Tory backbenchers worried about their futures will only grow.

The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson has a similar take on the subject of Stuart Wheeler's secret dinners.

He said on Radio 4's Today programme this morning that the notion that eight other Tory MPs were ready to defect was “tosh”. He went on: "These dinners have been going on for months and years but the main subject of conversation… was whether the Tory Party and Ukip could act together, whether they could run joint candidates and whether one lot could stand down for the other lot, not necessarily talks about defections."

Tories calling for a pact with Ukip include Jacob Rees-Mogg, who was advocating this solution even after his party managed to hold out against a strong Ukip challenge in June's by-election at Newark. "By being divided, we split 'small-c' conservatism and make it all the more likely that Ed Miliband will win," he said.

Rees-Mogg is one of six Tory MPs named by The Independent as "targets" for Ukip. They are: Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid-Bedfordshire (majority: 15,152); Michael Fabricant, MP for Lichfield (maj: 17,683); Jacob Rees-Mogg, MP for North East Somerset (maj: 4,914); Peter Bone, MP for Wellingborough (maj: 11,787); Philip Hollobone, MP for Kettering (maj: 9,094); and David Nuttall, MP for Bury North (maj: 2,243).

The Mole's view is that none of these six is likely to defect to Ukip any time soon – but that they are indeed typical of the 100 or so Tories who would (a) like a pact with Ukip and who (b) will happily back Britain's exit from the EU unless David Cameron can secure radical reforms, including an end to the right of free travel across Europe by EU citizens.

The latter demand comes as new statistics released yesterday show EU citizens are largely responsible for a surge in net migration to Britain in 2013/14 to 243,000 from 175,000 the previous year – bringing hollow laughter from Ukip supporters. David Cameron's target of fewer than 100,000 a year is clearly unreachable and anyway the incoming EU president, Jean-Claude Juncker, has made it clear that free movement is a founding principle of the EU.

Cameron's best hope in the short term is that whoever is chosen as Tory candidate for Clacton in the coming days (incidentally, the Mole will not be putting his money on Boris Johnson, despite several commentators saying it should be the London mayor) he or she can beat Douglas Carswell and quickly smother any new Ukip surge.

One small crumb of comfort for Cameron is that the Ukip vote in Clacton could itself be split. That's because a man called Roger Lord claims he was selected as the official Ukip candidate for Clacton only three weeks ago.

Angry that Carswell did not have the courtesy to ask whether he could stand in his stead - "He [Carswell] is only jumping ship because the waters are round his ankles," he told the Today programme – Lord could decide to stand as an independent candidate, taking enough Ukip voters with him to spoil the day for Farage and Carswell.

The earliest the Clacton by-election can take place is 2 October – the day after the Tory conference closes with what was expected to be a rallying call from Cameron to Tory candidates to pull together to beat Labour and win a working majority at the upcoming general election.

Not surprisingly, the speculation is that the by-election will be put off until the following Thursday, 9 October, putting at least some distance between Cameron's keynote speech and what many fear will be an appalling result for the Tories when the Clacton votes come in.