A "Momentum" moment for the Conservatives.

[Workingman]

I never said that UKIP was hard right, that is made up, a straw man.

I actually said; "Yet now that disaffected UKIP voters, and those on the hard right..." a completely different thing.

As for this:

Fully 50% of them (UKIP voters) were Ex Labour voters before the last election.

That really is a myth.

Try YouGov and Populus for breakdowns of the UKIP demographic, they are remarkably similar.



And let us not forget that Cameron promised a referendum to preserve the party based on the fact that the Conservatives were haemorrhaging support to UKIP.

Not that it really matters. What I am saying is that what is BAD for the goose is BAD for the gander.... and also BAD for the greater flock.

[Suff]

Sorry, not specific enough.

8% of all voters, who voted for UKIP in the 2015 election, were ex Labour voters. Fully 50% of those UKIP voters.

Did that make it clear?

So only 6% of the prior UKIP voters would be likely to take Tory party membership for "entryism", but, perhaps, we could see the same thing where Tories became Labour party members to vote Corbyn in..

[Workingman]

I am going to make my position perfectly clear on this.

I am a hard line centrist. That means I simultaneously like and dislike some policies from the Tories, Labour, LibDems, Greens and even UKIP. That also applies to Plaid, SF, the DUP and SNP, even though I have no way of voting for any of those. It also puts me in a position where I could never be a member of any political party - I believe that a large minority of people also find themselves in this position.

Having said that, I am very much in favour of people being members of, or voting for, a particular party because they share that party's core beliefs - even if only in the moment of an election.

What I am implacably opposed to is sub groups using a party's internal rules to put themselves above all others and steer that party in one direction, especially when that steerage is to a much harder position on the left or right. This is what is now happening.

I also do not like today's attitude of intolerance of other views. In the current climate this manifests itself, from both sides, as "It's OK for my party, but not for yours, because we are right and you are wrong."

If Labour and the Tories drift too far to the extremes I, for one, will be hoping for a new centrist party and one that nicks all the best policies from all the others and puts them in one wrapper.

[Suff]

I, on the other hand, put my support where I believe it belongs. I've voted Tory and SNP. I've been a member of the Conservatives and a member of UKIP. Depending on what I want at the time.

I see joining the Conservatives, at this time, as having the added benefit of being able to vote for a leader. I was also able to vote for two UKIP leaders but chose not to.

Nobody can be sure of my vote unless they are doing what I want. Also, if I get a chance to join a party and direct it in the direction I want it to go in, why wouldn't I?

[Workingman]

Suff, I take it from what you say that at the times you were a member of those parties you were mainly in agreement with the core principles of the Tories and UKIP, because they met your way of thinking at that time. That gave you, and other members of the core group, the ability to steer the direction of the core principles of those parties, which is fine, but you were not a member of a sub group - an important fact..

However, I put it to you, that what has happened in the past few years is not what you were seeking. Sub groups have come in, in many parties, and are steering those parties away from their core principles and in a totally different direction.

You might not be a member of one of those sub groups, and I bet that in other times if they were taking your party in a direction you did not approved of you would be up in arms, but if you do agree with them now you are are a collaborator.

You cannot spin these things both ways.

[Suff]

You cannot spin these things both ways.

I don't. If there were entryism such as Momentum into the Tory Party, hard right, I would not join. No matter whether it would allow me to choose a leader or not. I would use my vote to vote for another party.

I have done that in the past when a party has moved away from my values. Labour needs a very short, sharp, shock at the polls and it needs to be tied to Momentum, before it will stop.

This is not what I see here for the Tory party. A PM who is for a full exit from the EU is what more than half the Tories want, today. If more Tories come back from UKIP and vote to get rid of May's policies, then I'm OK with that. If it were more of a Momentum movement I would not be.

I'm not trying to spin it, I see it differently than Momentum. Is see the Aaron Banks refusal of membership as a good thing. That's Entryism.