Dear Jacob Rees-Mogg: UKIP Does Not Want a Tory Pact

Jacob Rees-Mogg MP isn’t listening. I told him before the European elections there would be no pact with the Conservatives but still he pushes for one, yesterday upping the stakes by suggesting UKIP could be given two Cabinet positions in a Tory-led Government, with Nigel Farage taking the role of Deputy Prime Minister.

Just what part of ‘no’ do the Tories not understand?

Their problem is they are so big-headed and out-of-touch they haven’t even considered that UKIP might not be, like them, desperate for power at any cost. The attitude of Rees-Mogg and the other leading Conservatives who outlined the ‘ground-rules’ for a pact yesterday illustrated perfectly why the Tories are going to lose seats to UKIP in the 2015 election and why it won’t be anyone’s fault but their own.

‘The idea would be that in Labour-held seats up North, where the Tories have no chance of winning, we would instruct Tory voters to back UKIP,’ says an unnamed source in the Mail on Sunday. ‘In return, UKIP would not put up candidates in seats where a Tory candidate is within, say, 2,000 votes of the sitting Labour MP.’

Well whoever it was who said this, you’re an arrogant sod. Voters are not yours to ‘instruct.’ You don’t own anyone’s vote, they lend it to you if they feel you’ve done a good job or will do a good job and it’s because you haven’t that people won’t vote for you. Yes, I admit I’m not particularly keen to see Ed Miliband in Downing Street next year, but I don’t much fancy another five years of Cameron either. But whoever wins, wins. That, my dear conceited friends, like it or not, is called democracy.

UKIP is standing on a platform of bringing democracy back to the people, not usurping it or cooking election results with stitch-ups and backroom deals. Our aim is to show how both parties are failing and – whether we’ve been Tory or Labour voters in the past, or neither – this is what we all sincerely believe. For us, it’s a Hobson’s choice between Miliband and Cameron and we won’t back either.

I certainly don’t want to join an unholy alliance with Tory politicians who would fall over themselves to shamelessly adopt UKIP policies on immigration, stopping benefits for EU nationals and stripping Jihadis of their passports, and then turn around and call me ‘racist,’ as Brooks Newmark MP more or less did when I appeared with him on Iain Dale’s Westminster Hour on LBC three weeks ago.

And as for talk about ‘Uniting the Right,’ well the Tories have completely misjudged UKIP if they think the party is ‘right wing,’ whatever that really means. We now very much occupy the common sense centre ground. Ending the bedroom tax; taking everyone on minimum wage out of tax altogether; cutting fuel bills; keeping the NHS free; restoring free eye and dental checks; regulating zero hours contracts; scrapping road tolls; taking our fair share of refugees; abolishing tuition fees for poorer families on approved courses: arguably, these are all ‘left-wing’ policies UKIP is committed to and which will take centre stage in our 2015 Manifesto.

Former Labour voters are flocking to UKIP, even those from renowned Labour families. Just this week it’s been announced that Blair Smillie, the great grandson of Labour party co-founder Robert Smillie, will stand for Parliament in next year’s General Election as UKIP’s candidate for Alyn and Deeside

One final message to Cameron and colleagues: we know your EU Referendum promise is worthless, so it’s no good blackmailing us with that. How do we know? Two words: Lisbon Treaty. We’ve heard it all before and we don’t believe you. Even if you do maintain your role as PM after the election – which the polls suggest you won’t and wouldn’t even if UKIP ceased to exist tomorrow – we know it either won’t happen, or if by some miracle it does, it will be a complete fudge.

All talk of a pact really tells us is that the Tories are terrified. It’s a desperate plea for help from a party in crisis, but UKIP will not help. Those of us who used to be Conservative left for very good reasons. You fooled us once before. We’re not making the same mistake again.