How the Cons could have avoided being ukippered

BBC News Website 29 September 2013 David Cameron wants leader debates before campaign begins:

Foreign Secretary William Hague has meanwhile ruled out an electoral pact with UKIP, after a BBC poll suggested nearly 25% of Conservative councillors were in favour of such a deal.

Some Conservative backbenchers have suggested a deal with UKIP is necessary to avoid splitting the right-wing vote and allowing Labour leader Ed Miliband into Number 10.

But Mr Hague said the Conservatives “don’t make pacts with other parties” and instead warned wavering Tory supporters they risked letting Labour into power.

UKIP Vote split

Nigel Farage stated today (BBC Today in Politics 1 March 2013)  in response to UKIP pushing the Tories into third place in the Eastleigh by-election (result):

The UKIP vote was split by the Tories

Daniel Hannan (Conservative MEP) blogging on the Daily Telegraph (The Eurosceptic Right wins more than half the vote, the Europhile Left gets in with less than a third) urged the Tories and UKIP to come to a pact.

Between them, the two Centre-Right parties secured 53 per cent; yet the Lib Dems got in with 32 per cent. This is worse than the SDP/Labour split of the early 1980s. It is more like the Conservative/Reform split in Canada in the 1990s, a split that gifted the Left vast parliamentary majorities on a minority of the vote for over a decade.

Imagine Eastleigh being replicated in 100 constituencies at the 2015 general election. Or in just 50. Yet again, the first-past-the-post system would see an essentially Eurosceptic electorate return an essentially Euro-integrationist House of Commons.

Oh dear, what to do?

uKippered – need an Alternative?

So a Tory campaign group lead by Michael Fabricant is recommending an electoral pact with UKIP (BBC News 26 November 2012)

He says an electoral pact with UKIP – in which the Conservatives would promise a referendum after 2015 and in return UKIP would not stand against Tory candidates – could help the Conservatives win an extra 20-40 seats at the next election.

This is surely nearly the ultimate in cynicism.  He is recommending that the Conservatives prostitute themselves to UKIP in exchange for extra seats.  Who wins seats should be up to the electorate.