Rochester by-election:Reckless wins Rochester and Strood seat
Ukip has gained its second directly-elected MP with victory over the Conservatives in the Rochester and Strood by-election.
Mark Reckless, who defected from the Tories to spark the showdown with his former party, won by a majority of 2,920.
The result is a serious blow for David Cameron, who personally spearheaded the effort to put a brake on Ukip's recent surge with less than six months to go until the general election.
Mr Farage said the "massive, massive" win in what he called a "David v Goliath battle" meant "all bets are off" for 2015".
It comes just weeks after another defector Douglas Carswell romped home for Ukip in an identical contest in Clacton, Essex.
But the smaller-than-forecast margin of defeat may calm nerves that more eurosceptic backbenchers will be tempted to jump ship and join Nigel Farage's party.
Labour - which suffered a polling-day embarrassment with the resignation of shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry over what was called a "snobbish" tweet about an English flag-draped house in the constituency - came third.
And the Liberal Democrats continued a humiliating string of by-election performances, finishing fifth with just 349 votes and losing another deposit.
A total of 40,113 votes were cast - a turnout of 50.67 per cent.
In his acceptance speech, Mr Reckless said: "If we can win here, we can win across the country. If you vote Ukip, you get Ukip."
And he told voters: "You remain my boss, don't let me forget it."
Mr Farage told reporters: "(David Cameron) put his own personal reputation on the line to fight this by-election and lost, so there you go."
Mr Farage said Ukip could become the third largest party after May’s general election – ahead of Lib Dems. He said the result would make the general election “impossible to call” and “change British politics”.
“When I think about this campaign, the Prime Minister has come to this constituency five times and 1,000 activists were out there in this constituency, and there was a Conservative telephone poll campaign of astonishing proportions,” he said.
”When they said they would throw the kitchen sink at this by-election, they did.”
Mr Shapps accepted the result would “make it harder to do the things we want to do in terms of controlling immigration, carrying on with this economic recovery”.
But he said the narrower-than-predicted margin of victory for Ukip meant Tory candidate Kelly Tolhurst was well placed to wrest back the seat on May 7.
“Over the course of this campaign the gap has closed. They have ended up with about a 7% lead for Mark Reckless. They were predicting something over twice that level. So 2,900 is not a big majority now to try to win back in 170 days time,” he said.
Mr Reckless said his victory had proved that Ukip could win nationwide and urged voters to ensure enough MPs were elected to hold the balance of power after 2015.
“Whichever constituency, whatever your former party allegiance, think of what it would mean to have a bloc of Ukip MPs at Westminster large enough to hold the balance of power,” he said.
“If you believe in freedom, if you believe in low taxes, if you believe in clean government, if you believe in localism, if you believe in people power.
”If you believe that the world is bigger than Europe, if you believe in an independent Britain, then come with us and we will give you back your country."
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| Politicsalerts.blogspot.com |
Mark Reckless, who defected from the Tories to spark the showdown with his former party, won by a majority of 2,920.
The result is a serious blow for David Cameron, who personally spearheaded the effort to put a brake on Ukip's recent surge with less than six months to go until the general election.
Mr Farage said the "massive, massive" win in what he called a "David v Goliath battle" meant "all bets are off" for 2015".
It comes just weeks after another defector Douglas Carswell romped home for Ukip in an identical contest in Clacton, Essex.
But the smaller-than-forecast margin of defeat may calm nerves that more eurosceptic backbenchers will be tempted to jump ship and join Nigel Farage's party.
Labour - which suffered a polling-day embarrassment with the resignation of shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry over what was called a "snobbish" tweet about an English flag-draped house in the constituency - came third.
And the Liberal Democrats continued a humiliating string of by-election performances, finishing fifth with just 349 votes and losing another deposit.
A total of 40,113 votes were cast - a turnout of 50.67 per cent.
In his acceptance speech, Mr Reckless said: "If we can win here, we can win across the country. If you vote Ukip, you get Ukip."
And he told voters: "You remain my boss, don't let me forget it."
Mr Farage told reporters: "(David Cameron) put his own personal reputation on the line to fight this by-election and lost, so there you go."
Mr Farage said Ukip could become the third largest party after May’s general election – ahead of Lib Dems. He said the result would make the general election “impossible to call” and “change British politics”.
“When I think about this campaign, the Prime Minister has come to this constituency five times and 1,000 activists were out there in this constituency, and there was a Conservative telephone poll campaign of astonishing proportions,” he said.
”When they said they would throw the kitchen sink at this by-election, they did.”
Mr Shapps accepted the result would “make it harder to do the things we want to do in terms of controlling immigration, carrying on with this economic recovery”.
But he said the narrower-than-predicted margin of victory for Ukip meant Tory candidate Kelly Tolhurst was well placed to wrest back the seat on May 7.
“Over the course of this campaign the gap has closed. They have ended up with about a 7% lead for Mark Reckless. They were predicting something over twice that level. So 2,900 is not a big majority now to try to win back in 170 days time,” he said.
Mr Reckless said his victory had proved that Ukip could win nationwide and urged voters to ensure enough MPs were elected to hold the balance of power after 2015.
“Whichever constituency, whatever your former party allegiance, think of what it would mean to have a bloc of Ukip MPs at Westminster large enough to hold the balance of power,” he said.
“If you believe in freedom, if you believe in low taxes, if you believe in clean government, if you believe in localism, if you believe in people power.
”If you believe that the world is bigger than Europe, if you believe in an independent Britain, then come with us and we will give you back your country."
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