David Campbell Bannerman, Conservative MEP for the Eastern region
One of the region’s MEPs faces an uncertain future after failing to win the backing of party bosses.
David Campbell Bannerman, who defected to the Conservatives from UKIP in 2011, must go through a ballot of all Tory members if he is to be selected as a candidate for next year’s European elections because he did not win the support of 60 per cent of constituency chairmen.
Richard Howitt, a Labour MEP for the Eastern region, claimed the Conservatives were “tearing each other apart”.
He said: “This shows the Tories at war with UKIP in the East of England, sticking the knife in to someone they’d so recently welcomed with open arms, despite the fact most of them agree with every word he says.
“Mr Campbell Bannerman appears to be the carpet-bagger who has had the rug pulled from underneath him.”
Mr Campbell Bannerman, a Cambridge resident who is a former deputy leader of UKIP, said he was confident he would get back on the ballot paper.
He said: “It’s not about sticking knives in, it’s about democracy and I welcome the choice of the membership.
“I came to the party from UKIP and I think there is a feeling I should go to the full membership.”
The other two Conservative MEPs seeking re-election next year, Vicky Ford and Geoffrey Van Orden, both won the backing of party bosses – although Mr Howitt claimed Mr Van Orden had scraped through by a single vote.
The fourth Conservative MEP, Robert Sturdy, is retiring.
The better informed readers will remember that when David Bannerman first set out to reinvent himself as a member of UKIP, having failed ever to get elected within the Tory Party, I not only cautioned against accepting his duplicity as a turncoat but also exposed the fact that both his CV and even his claims relative to ancestry were a pack of lies.
However the inept and unprofessional leadership of UKIP with no meaningful ability to vet candidates were impressed by the fraudulent credentials he put forward!
I well remember his parents relief though at that stage hope, that David might get himself a proper job after years of drifting around the periphery of the Tory Party.
In real terms not only was David Bannerman a fraud it transpired that he was also embroilled in fraudulent abuse of the public purse and is still under investigation by OLAF as a result of Daniel Foggo’s exposure of misuse of public funds, in The Sunday Times as explained on camera by Stuart Agnew who is also still under investigation for abuse of the public purse and for his part in electoral fraud and money laundering in cahoots with UKIP’s dodgey Peer Malcolm Pearson and his private company which he uses for money laundering to cheat the system! As admitted to on camera and published in the same article!
You may also be interested to note the other Tory turncoat the odious and untrustworthy Niel Hamilton who brought shame on British House of Commons with his sleaze and cash for questions, which in part brought down the Major Government and gave rise to the 13 unlucky years of economic illiteracy of Labour’s dishonest and profligate incompetence! Hamilton featured on Panorama at the time and again in the last week in the hour long documentary by Daniel Foggo which exposed Patrick Mercer MP’s willingness to accept bribes in the form of cash for questions – another very competent exposure by Daniel Foggo, which can be seen on iPod CLICK HERE.
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