WI: Conservative Party split after a Remain referendum

I'm currently working on a scenario where UKIP do much better from 2011 onwards, but the Remain campaign are able to win the EU referendum. In the aftermath a large number of hard-right Eurosceptic Conservatives defect to the rising UKIP.

Now I'm not that well-versed on Tory party nomenclature, so I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me with information regarding potential defectors.
 
I'm currently working on a scenario where UKIP do much better from 2011 onwards, but the Remain campaign are able to win the EU referendum. In the aftermath a large number of hard-right Eurosceptic Conservatives defect to the rising UKIP.

Now I'm not that well-versed on Tory party nomenclature, so I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me with information regarding potential defectors.

It depends on why the Eurosceptics deflect. If it is a knee jerk response, then a few backbenchers. For any big names to jump, then the party leadership has to do something which really pisses them off. Because Eurosceptics such as David Davis, IDS and Liam Fox would have a lot to lose by jumping to Farage. Alternatively, they could choose to set up their own party and make an agreement with UKIP not to stand in their seats. This is more likely, as it is better to be big fish in a small pond, than a small fish in a pond owned by someone else.
 
There were a few articles written around the time when Carswell and Reckless left that listed possible defectors, and bookies were keeping odds on the next one to go, here are a couple of the links I found:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/19/mps-tory-party-fear-defect-to-ukip
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2014/11/bookies-point-to-philip-hollobone-as-next-tory-ukip-defector/

I think there are probably only 10 or 20 MPs, mainly backbenchers, who would realistically defect to UKIP. Many of them, whilst eurosceptics, do not have a great deal of love for UKIP. Perhaps a major breakaway would form its own party in alliance with UKIP, or merge with it to create a new party altogether.

If there is a large scale Tory breakaway, it is possible that a few Labour MPs, like John Mann or Kate Hoey, both of whom ended up backing Out, could defect too.

Out of curiosity, how does UKIP manage to do much better than OTL, and yet not win the referendum?
 
There's not going to be defections if it's the same result at a 2015 election for UKIP as it was OTL. Or the same treatment for Carswell or a Carswell type by Farage. You would need UKIP to decisively break through as the third (or fourth, depending on how you want to define things) party before people even started minimally considering more defections - and in such circumstances I'm dubious Remain would be in a better position to win.

The referendum result is not a binary thing and if Leave nearly wins it's still going to be seen as a very significant success for the right, and the pressure on Cameron will be strong. In short there's not much incentive for defections as it would look like Leave would take over the party in due course - what BoJo was basically banking on.
 
Perhaps a potential split results in a new right-wing party temporarily forming from defecting MPs, which then fuses with UKIP as a means of promoting their basic agenda, but "softening" it to make it more palatable to a mainstream electorate.
 
There's not going to be defections if it's the same result at a 2015 election for UKIP as it was OTL. Or the same treatment for Carswell or a Carswell type by Farage. You would need UKIP to decisively break through as the third (or fourth, depending on how you want to define things) party before people even started minimally considering more defections - and in such circumstances I'm dubious Remain would be in a better position to win.
If both Reckless and Carswell were to keep their seats with handy majorities, and UKIP took at least a dozen more seats than in OTL, then maybe more Tories could be persuaded to join. I agree that a Remain victory is unlikely in such circumstances, but I can still see a couple of ways to make it happen. One way would be for a better UKIP performance to send the Tories enough into minority that they need UKIP's support in governing, which they give them in return for an EU referendum. However, in the process they are tarred with the brush of supporting the government, and suffer a loss in popularity which translates into less support for leave.

Or the higher UKIP vote in 2015 could scare the EU into giving the UK more concessions in the renegotiation, or for Cameron to take a 'gloves off' approach to the referendum. In OTL, he was so confident in Remain's victory that he didn't do everything he could have to win, for fear of upsetting his backbenchers and making it more difficult for him to reunite the party. Changes like keeping the original proposed question, which meant 'Yes' was Remain and 'No' was Leave, and allowing votes at 16 which Labour and the Lib Dems attempted to add in the Lords could give his side a boost of at least a few points.
 
There were a few articles written around the time when Carswell and Reckless left that listed possible defectors, and bookies were keeping odds on the next one to go, here are a couple of the links I found:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/19/mps-tory-party-fear-defect-to-ukip
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2014/11/bookies-point-to-philip-hollobone-as-next-tory-ukip-defector/

I think there are probably only 10 or 20 MPs, mainly backbenchers, who would realistically defect to UKIP. Many of them, whilst eurosceptics, do not have a great deal of love for UKIP. Perhaps a major breakaway would form its own party in alliance with UKIP, or merge with it to create a new party altogether.

If there is a large scale Tory breakaway, it is possible that a few Labour MPs, like John Mann or Kate Hoey, both of whom ended up backing Out, could defect too.

Out of curiosity, how does UKIP manage to do much better than OTL, and yet not win the referendum?

Thanks this is the sort of thing I'm looking for.

As for how. Long story short, due to votes being split due to reasons, they win several close by-elections during 2013 and 2014, giving them a larger presence in British politics, then, in the run up to the 2015 election they are included in the election debates, giving them a national platform. In 2015 they hold these seats and win several more, making them the fourth/fifth largest party in Parliament. There are other factors as well. The greater surge for UKIP support is more a side effect of the project I'm working on rather than its goal.


There's not going to be defections if it's the same result at a 2015 election for UKIP as it was OTL. Or the same treatment for Carswell or a Carswell type by Farage. You would need UKIP to decisively break through as the third (or fourth, depending on how you want to define things) party before people even started minimally considering more defections - and in such circumstances I'm dubious Remain would be in a better position to win.

The referendum result is not a binary thing and if Leave nearly wins it's still going to be seen as a very significant success for the right, and the pressure on Cameron will be strong. In short there's not much incentive for defections as it would look like Leave would take over the party in due course - what BoJo was basically banking on.

Um, let's just say that the 2015 election is very different to OTL.


Perhaps a potential split results in a new right-wing party temporarily forming from defecting MPs, which then fuses with UKIP as a means of promoting their basic agenda, but "softening" it to make it more palatable to a mainstream electorate.

Sort of what I'm aiming for.
 
Thanks this is the sort of thing I'm looking for.

As for how. Long story short, due to votes being split due to reasons, they win several close by-elections during 2013 and 2014, giving them a larger presence in British politics, then, in the run up to the 2015 election they are included in the election debates, giving them a national platform. In 2015 they hold these seats and win several more, making them the fourth/fifth largest party in Parliament. There are other factors as well. The greater surge for UKIP support is more a side effect of the project I'm working on rather than its goal.

They were included in the debates in 2015. You'd probably want someone to step in and tell Nigel that offending most of the population with his comments about foreign HIV patients isn't going to help with broad appeal.
 
If both Reckless and Carswell were to keep their seats with handy majorities, and UKIP took at least a dozen more seats than in OTL, then maybe more Tories could be persuaded to join. I agree that a Remain victory is unlikely in such circumstances, but I can still see a couple of ways to make it happen. One way would be for a better UKIP performance to send the Tories enough into minority that they need UKIP's support in governing, which they give them in return for an EU referendum. However, in the process they are tarred with the brush of supporting the government, and suffer a loss in popularity which translates into less support for leave.

UKIP just supporting the government on confidence and supply isn't going to change the result. You're bringing in Lib Dem AVref thinking into it again. And I strongly suspect that's all Farage would give them - he explicitly ruled out a full coalition with the Tories IOTL, and if UKIP has done better 2010-2015 then Cameron will have followed through on his referendum promise and it'll be in the manifesto. So UKIP doesn't exactly need to extract anything from the Tories in these circumstances through a UKIP-Con pact.

Or the higher UKIP vote in 2015 could scare the EU into giving the UK more concessions in the renegotiation,

I think we can all agree that is very unlikely for obvious reasons.

or for Cameron to take a 'gloves off' approach to the referendum. In OTL, he was so confident in Remain's victory that he didn't do everything he could have to win, for fear of upsetting his backbenchers and making it more difficult for him to reunite the party.

.... seriously, you're joking right? Cameron took a thoroughly gloves off approach. It was slash and burn stuff and it alienated the hell out of Leave supporters. Barring him skull-fucking Peter Bone's wife I'm really not sure what exactly you're envisaging.

Changes like keeping the original proposed question, which meant 'Yes' was Remain and 'No' was Leave,

Disregarding the recommendations of the Electoral Commission would come with consequences in Parliament.

and allowing votes at 16 which Labour and the Lib Dems attempted to add in the Lords could give his side a boost of at least a few points.

There's been serious analysis of this, and the conclusion has been that it would at most put Leave's winning margin under a million, not overturn the result. Certainly not 'at least a few points'. Not that there's realistically any serious chance of it happening mind you, either.
 
.... seriously, you're joking right? Cameron took a thoroughly gloves off approach. It was slash and burn stuff and it alienated the hell out of Leave supporters. Barring him skull-fucking Peter Bone's wife I'm really not sure what exactly you're envisaging.
He could have allowed this, for a start.
Disregarding the advice of the Electoral Commission would come with consequences in Parliament.
Yes, but it would have likely resulted in more votes for Remain (or Yes in this case). My entire point is that he could have decided to sacrifice a bit of party unity for a better chance of winning the referendum. Though in this scenario, that might not be all that likely, considering he may have more to fear from UKIP defections.
There's been serious analysis of this, and the conclusion has been that it would at most put Leave's winning margin under a million, not overturn the result. Certainly not 'at least a few points'. Not that there's realistically any serious chance of it happening mind you, either.
I didn't claim it would automatically mean a remain victory, just that it would contribute to narrowing the gap, which as you point out, it does. Is it really totally unrealistic for a PM to do what is in the interests of his side? Especially when there is precedent in a previous referendum in Scotland that happened on his watch, and the opposition parties would block a bill which didn't include it in the Lords. If Cameron saw that it was in his interest, he could make a sound case.
 
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As other commentators pointed out, I don't see how this happens.

I can't reconcile a stronger UKIP with a Remain win. And I don't see how you get a Tory split if the Tory government holds the referendum. I thought the whole point of holding the referendum was precisely to preclude the possibility of a Tory split.
 
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