Bow Group Chairman Ben Harris-Quinney, writing in the Sunday Express – read the original article here.
Ben Harris-Quinney, Chairman of the Bow Group & Director of the campaigning Conservative Grassroots movement, confirmed talks with Ukip about a summit meeting later this month were already in progress.
He said Conservative MPs and MEPs had been approached to talk at the event but their names would not be released until nearer the time.
He added: “There is going to be a serious dialogue with Ukip with a view to an electoral pact. We can no longer afford to dismiss Ukip, they have to be taken seriously. We have reached the point where Ukip is more than a protest party.”
Nigel Farage told the Sunday Express: “I think there are a lot of Tory associations who would love a joining ticket with us but none of it will fly if Conservative Central Office continues to veto the very concept.
“My view is that we should consider it, as long as David Cameron is no longer leader. It would allow us to completely remould the centre-right of British politics.”
Mr Farage, who stressed his view did not necessarily represent what his party might think, added that it would be a big mistake to dismiss Ukip’s success as “a mere protest vote”.
He spoke as it emerged that grassroots Tories are already making plans for talks with Ukip this month with the idea of forging an electoral pact ahead of the 2015 General Election.
Last night the Tory hierarchy was still trying to play down the Ukip factor but many in the party were warning that the local election results, which saw Ukip gain 23 per cent of the vote and 139 seats, meant negotiations were now imperative.
While one senior Conservative spokesman insisted the answer to the grassroot calls for a Tory-Ukip pact would be a “great big no”, some Conservative MPs were privately insisting that some sort of deal – either formal or informal – must be struck.
They see a pact as the only way of preventing a split in the centre-right vote that would guarantee a Labour General Election victory.
In the biggest surge for a minority party in 60 years, Ukip won almost a quarter of Thursday’s vote share, pushing Labour into third place and the Lib Dems fourth. While Ukip took seats off all its main rivals, the Tories were the biggest losers.
The results have created the potential for Tory/Ukip coalitions in former Tory-held counties which are now under no overall control.
The councils in question, Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Lancashire, Warwickshire, East Sussex, Oxfordshire and the Isle of Wight, will now come under intense scrutiny to see what sort of deals get struck.
Mr Cameron, who had previously referred to Ukip members as “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” is already taking a very different tack.
He stressed: “We need to show respect for people who have taken the choice to support this party and we need to work really hard to win them back.”
Former leadership rival David Davis went further, warning: “The fact is if we want to win the next election we have to break this impression of being privileged and out of touch. That means more straight talking and fewer focus groups, more conventional Tory policies, not because they are Tory but because they work, less pandering to the metropolitan interest groups and please, please, no more Old Etonian advisers.”
Up to 20 Conservative branch chairman are understood to be backing a letter from the Coalition For Marriage calling for the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill to be delayed.
A ComRes poll, which correctly predicted the scale of the Ukip surge, revealed that one-in-four Tory voters had switched to Ukip in protest over the gay marriage Bill.
The Prime Minster was last night also under mounting pressure to bring forward legislation for an EU referendum. Some Conservatives want the referendum, at present pencilled in for 2017, to be held on the same day as the General Election in 2015.
Mark Pritchard, former secretary of the backbench 22 Committee, said Mr Cameron could no longer promise a “jam tomorrow” referendum.
Home Secretary Theresa May insisted the Prime Minister was right to wait until 2017 to hold the vote. She said: “If you want to take a renegotiated settlement to the British public you have got to renegotiate it.”
Much rests on the Queen’s Speech on Wednesday which will include populist measures to prevent “health tourism” within the NHS and to tackle antisocial behaviour. It will also herald a range of Bills designed to promote growth in Britain’s still flat-lining economy.