Neil Hamilton, the former Tory MP who is now chairman of UKIP in Wiltshire, has revealed that he may stand against Tory MP Claire Perry at the next General Election.
In an exclusive statement to Marlborough News Online, the 65-year-old barrister announced plans to build a UKIP branch in the Devizes and Marlborough area in the coming months.
“I was disappointed that UKIP fought only three out of 20 council seats in the Devizes constituency,” he explained. “In the next few months, my priority as Wiltshire UKIP chairman is to create a lively UKIP branch for Marlborough, Devizes and surrounding villages.
“I might even take on Claire Perry myself in the next election!
Anyone who wants to help us get our country back should join us by getting in touch with me.”
The possibility of Mr Hamilton challenging Mrs Perry has a special irony since he was the Tory MP for Tatton for 14 years, the constituency where Chancellor George Osborne is now the constituency MP.
It was Mr Osborne who gave former New York banker Mrs Perry a political boost by giving her a post in his parliamentary team and supporting her promotion to replace Devizes MP Michael Ancram when he retired.
Mr Hamilton is highly critical of Mrs Perry’s attitude towards UKIP and the suggestion that voting for the party will let Labour in at the next General Election.
“The Tories seem to regard UKIP as burglars in their house,” declared Mr Hamilton. “I’ve got news for them. It’s not their house.
“It belongs to The People and millions of them want better tenants than David Cameron, who has comprehensively betrayed traditional Tory values.
“UKIP has been successful because it shares the aspirations of ordinary people who are sick and tired of David Cameron’s agenda of cutting defence to increase overseas aid and slavish acceptance of the EU, which stops us controlling migration, yokes us with human rights law abuses and suffocates us with political correctness.”
He added: “Although the first-past-the-post voting system produced only one UKIP win in Wiltshire last week, we came very close to winning several others and our average vote was 25 per cent throughout the county.
“It would have been more but for the specious argument that voting UKIP will only let Miliband’s Labour in. The truth is, Labour has no chance in the Devizes constituency. They got only 10 per cent in the last General Election.
“No amount of Tory defections to UKIP will let Labour in here. So, disgruntled Tories can vote UKIP quite safely in the next election.”
And he added: “Last week’s results show UKIP is the main challenger to the Tories in the South and to Labour in the North. We came second in the last four by-elections. Rotherham and South Shields are traditional Labour. In Eastleigh we nearly won a Liberal-Democrat seat.
“UKIP is not just a refuge for battered Tories. It is the common sense party representing the common ground of politics, shorn of the old parties’ class
We must take UKIP’s surge seriously in Wiltshire warns Tory MP Claire Perry
