Teresa Gorman joins UKIP, rumours of more defections

Former Tory MP, Teresa Gorman, has gone public as a member of UKIP and is urging people to vote UKIP in the upcoming elections.

Gorman was a Maastricht rebel, openly criticising John Major's decision to ratify the Maastricht Treaty which created the political European Union from the European Community, the €uro and forced an EU citizenship on everyone who lives in an EU member state.

The Tories under the traitor Ted Heath took us into what is now the EU back in the 70s and the Tories have been behind every major power grab since, apart from the Lisbon Treaty which they were simply complicit in.  There have only been two opportunities for a referendum on membership of the EU - once in the 70s when Heath's government lied to the electorate to secure the yes vote and once last year when Cameron whipped his MPs to deny us the referendum we demanded.

Rumours still abound that one or more Tory MPs are planning to defect to UKIP with Angela Watkinson the latest one linked to the party.  Guido posted a list with odds a couple of weeks ago, suggesting Mark Pritchard and Bill Cash the most likely defectors, followed by George Eustice and Douglas Carswell and then Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorres.

• Mark Pritchard is Tory through and through and the Chairman of UKIP Telford & Wrekin branch is his former private secretary.  It wasn't a happy parting of company.  It's also my branch and we have ... history.
• Bill Cash was a Maastricht rebel like Angela Watkinson but other than produce some leaflets on the EU, has done very little to oppose our membership.
• George Eustice was a UKIP candidate in the 1999 EU elections but was turned by the Tories through his involvement with them when he worked in PR.
• Jacob Rees-Mogg is pretty rebellious (and co-incidentally contested Mark Pritchard's seat in 2001) but he's also a Cornish regionalist and an old Etonian - UKIP is possibly a little uncouth for Rees-Mogg.
• Nadine Dorres seems to be pretty disillusioned with the Tories at the moment - she's slating them again today on ConHome - but then who isn't?  She does seem to be trying to turn the Tories into UKIP though which is pretty futile but does make her probably the most likely one to defect.

It is very unlikely that just one MP will defect to UKIP so if Tory MPs have been talking to UKIP about defecting, they're probably waiting for another one or two to make the same pledge.