UKIP’s Mark Reckless to join Conservatives in assembly
By Nick ServiniPolitical editor, Wales
6 April 2017
The South Wales East AM will sit as a Tory but will not join the party.
Conservative group leader Andrew RT Davies welcomed a “hard-working and dedicated” AM, saying it made his party the official opposition to Labour.
But Gower MP and ex-AM Byron Davies said allowing Mr Reckless into the group was “not a particularly bright idea”.
When questioned about Andrew RT Davies’ leadership of the Tory group on BBC Radio Wales, the Gower MP said “we have to live with that”.
With regard to how the Tory group should work with Mr Reckless, he said: “I would be very, very cautious about how they deal with him.”
Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns said: “Mark Reckless is not a member of the Conservative Party. There are absolutely no plans for him to become a member of the Conservative Party.”
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “Decisions about who sits with the Conservative group in the Welsh Assembly are a matter for the group in the Welsh Assembly.”
Image caption Andrew RT Davies says Mark Reckless joins a “strong and united team”
In a statement, Mr Reckless said he had been “thoroughly impressed by the performance and discipline of Andrew RT Davies and the Welsh Conservative group”.
He said Theresa May’s leadership as Prime Minister had been “exemplary” and that she had been “steadfast in her position to deliver on the wishes of the people of Wales and the United Kingdom” in relation to Brexit.
Assembly Presiding Officer Elin Jones said the former UKIP AM could be a member of the Conservative group.
Andrew RT Davies said Mr Reckless had “proven himself to be a hard-working and dedicated AM who has been an effective representative for the South East Wales region”.
“He will now be able to continue this work as part of a strong and united team which will be the official opposition in the assembly,” he added.
Mr Reckless told BBC Wales he knew there was still “bad blood” from the time he quit the Tories to join UKIP.
“It’s not for me to waltz back into the party with any sense of entitlement,” he said.
“I want to focus my efforts here with some humility.”
“He didn’t have the courtesy or the courage to speak to me about any doubts he had about his future in UKIP or what he might get from the Conservative Party,” he told BBC Wales.
“Fundamentally he was elected to the assembly not as Mark Reckless but as a UKIP candidate for the South East Wales region.
“He’s betrayed the trust of all of those who selected him in the first place to be a candidate and all of those who worked to get him elected to the assembly.
“He’s got no mandate to sit in the assembly as a member of the Conservative group.”
UKIP chairman Paul Oakden said it was “incumbent on Mark Reckless to relinquish a position he has only by virtue of a UKIP mandate”.
“The position should go to the next UKIP candidate on the regional list,” he said.
Image copyrightReutersImage caption Nigel Farage welcomed Mark Reckless to the UKIP fold in 2014
Mr Reckless was Conservative MP for Rochester and Strood when he defected to UKIP in 2014.
He voluntarily quit the seat to fight and win it in a by-election for UKIP, but lost it at the 2015 general election.
There is no requirement under assembly rules for either regional or constituency AMs to stand down when they leave the party they were elected to represent.
Mr Reckless told BBC Wales he would “love to be able to put my decision to the electorate” as he did in 2014, but said assembly rules regarding members elected via a regional list prevented this.
Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood said the changing arithmetic in the Senedd – with Plaid now the third-biggest party – would mean “very little in actual fact”.
She added: “We’ve got a strong team of assembly members all of whom are working very hard for the constituencies they represent, and for Plaid Cymru as a whole.
“We are putting the Welsh national interest at the top of the agenda at every opportunity. We might be a smaller team but we certainly are a very effective team.”
Analysis by BBC Wales political correspondent Tomos Livingstone
Normally the defection of a politician from one party to another prompts a stream of abuse from the member’s former home and the sound of champagne corks popping at their new abode.
There’s been plenty of the former from UKIP now that Mark Reckless has left, but not everyone in the Conservative Party is celebrating today’s development.
Mr Reckless made the opposite journey in 2014, and anger at that decision is still plain for all to see.
That’s why the South Wales East AM is going to be a Conservative AM, but not, rather oddly, a member of the Conservative Party.
Has Andrew RT Davies therefore performed a coup, defying the wishes of Welsh Conservative MPs who think he’s mis-read the party mood, and making his group the second-largest in the Senedd?
Or has he needlessly made some powerful enemies who might want to re-visit the whole affair in the weeks and months ahead?
This could be the beginning of the story rather than the end.
To view the original article CLICK HERERegards, Greg_L-W.
~~~~~~~~~~#########~~~~~~~~~~
Posted by: Greg Lance-Watkins
tel: 44 (0)1594 – 528 337
Calls from ‘Number Withheld’ phones Are Blocked
All unanswered messages are recorded.
Leave your name & a UK land line number & I will return your call.
ALL MY BLOGS & WEB SITES are clearly sourced to me
I do NOT use an obfuscated eMail address to hide behind
I do NOT use or bother reading FaceBook
I DO have a Voice Mail Message System
I ONLY GUARANTEE to answer identifiable eMails
I ONLY GUARANTEE to phone back identifiable UK Land Line Messages
I do NOT accept phone calls from witheld numbers
I Regret due to BT in this area I have a rubbish Broadband connection
I AM opposed to British membership of The EU
I AM opposed to Welsh, Scottish or English Independence within an interdependent UK
I am NOT a WARMIST
I do NOT believe the IPCC Climate Propaganda re Anthropogenic Global Warming
I AM strongly opposed to the subsidy or use of failed technologies eg. WIND TURBINES
I AM IN FAVOUR of rapid research & development of NEW NUCLEAR technologies
I see no evidence to trust POLITICIANS at any level or of any persuasion
I do NOT believe in GODS singular or plural, Bronze Age or Modern
I value the NHS as a HEALTH SERVICE NOT a Lifestyle support
I believe in a DEATH PENALTY for serial or GBH rape.
I believe in a DEATH PENALTY for serial, terrorist, mass or for pleasure murder.
I believe in a DEATH PENALTY for serial gross child abuse including sexual.
I do NOT trust or believe in armed police
I do NOT believe in prolonging human life beyond reasonable expectation of sentient participatory intellectual existence
I believe in EUTHENASIA under clearly defined & legal terms
I try to make every effort to NOT infringe copyrights in any commercial way & make all corrections of fact brought to my attention by an identifiable individual
Are #UKippers Fighting Like Ferretts In A Sack – Over A Corpse & one rich man’s ego? Clearly despite its EU income Ukip is dependent on Aaron Banks’ cash!
~~~~~~~~~~#########~~~~~~~~~~
.
Hi,
a measure of just how attrociously badly led Ukip has been for many years is not just the obviouse realisation that even with Nigel Farage having quit as leader he is still controlling his party – but you will note the utter chaos of its NEC & their lack of competence – their fantasy pilot & his dating site con act of their Chairman Paul Oakden and not only is Nigel Farage’s closest aide under the custody of the FBI but it was Nigel Farage’s records that were seized when he and George Cottrell were together in America about to leave – after Cottrell’s bungled drug deal & efforts to blackmail and intimidate whilst they were there!
Then consider the party is broke with an overspend of £850,000 despite the massive value of bribes/(salaries & expenses) from the EU which runs to £Millions a year + the £Millions Farage receives as leader of the EFDD, and there have been no murmurs of his intention to resign frtom this comfy and well funded post.
Then consider that as a party that made much of being anti membership of the EU they spent a paultry £55,000 on supporting the Referendum and had done all they could to prevent the Petition organised by Nikki Sinclaire which had forced the debate to Leave-The-EU on David Cameron & incurred his first major rebellion that led him to include a promise of a finite IN/OUT Referendum in The Tory Manifesto at the last General Election!
Just where has all the money gone? It runs to many £Millions so Draw your own conclusions! In drawing your own conclusion you will note the paucity of donations from Ukip MEPs and staff reflected on the Electoral Commission’s roll of donors!
Accounts reveal Ukip ended last year £850,000 in deficit
Nigel Farage in a pub in MargateCREDIT: GETTY
The UK Independence Party ended last year more than £850,000 in deficit, according to its latest accounts that show how the party’s finances dwindled after the 2015 election and in the run-up to the referendum campaign.
The party spent £6.7m in the year, more than its £5.8m overall income, as the cost of the general election and a 4.5pc fall in membership numbers took its toll.
Ukip held onto one parliamentary seat in May 2015, as Douglas Carswell kept the constituency of Clacton. Mark Reckless lost his seat to the Conservatives, the party he left to join Ukip.
Donations overall fell 18pc to £4.4m last year and the party booked no revenue from its online shop, which generated £119,000 from selling Ukip merchandise in 2014, after it was hived off into a separate commercial entity.
Nigel FarageCREDIT: STEVE FINN
As a result of its deficit during the year, the party’s funds were £540,000 in the red, compared to a cash pile of £285,000 at the end of 2014.
The six leadership candidates do not include Mr Carswell, who along with other parliamentary candidates spent £3.2m on election expenses during last year.
The party also spent £65,000 on membership fees for Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy, its political bloc within the European Parliament. During the year it also spent a mere £55,751 on referendum expenses, as Brexit-supporting campaigns such as Vote Leave and Leave.EU took a greater role in the debate.
Greg Lance - Watkins (Greg_L-W)
~~~~~~~~~~#########~~~~~~~~~~
Ukip-vs-EUkip 