UKIP East Midlands
The Clarke effect boosts UKIP
Friday, 23rd January 2009
The return of Europhile Kenneth Clarke to the Conservative leadership team is proving to be a boost to UKIP membership.
"Ken Clarke returns to the Tory front bench and moments later we are receiving defectors," said UKIP leader Nigel Farage MEP. "Clarke's views on Europe are so out of line with the bulk of the Tory Party membership that they simply cannot stand being in the same party any more.
"We can expect to see a lot more of this as people realise how much of what David Cameron and the front bench say about Europe is simply posturing.
"Only UKIP is firmly committed to leaving the EU so that we can be free and independent once again."
An early defector is Councillor Denis Allen, a former mayor of Wellington, Shropshire, who serves on Telford and Wrekin Unitary Authority and is also a former chairman of the Wrekin Conservative Association.
"I was already uncomfortable with the way that David Cameron fudged the issue of the Conservative membership of the EPP group in the European Parliament," Cllr Allen said. "But the appointment of such a strong Europhile like Ken Clarke to the front bench was the last straw.
"We can see that we can't negotiate from within: they ignored the Dutch and the French referendums and they're ignoring the Irish now. We have to leave so that we can rule ourselves.
"That's why I joined UKIP, the only party advocating that Britain should be ruled by the British."
