There are four Conservative MPs who have voted more strongly against the European Union than Douglas Carswell. Carswell recently “stood down” as a Conservative MP and was re-elected as a United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) MP in the resultant by-election.
Mark Reckless who also “resigned” as a Conservative MP to contest a by-election as a UKIP candidate had the 11th most anti-EU voting record among Conservative MPs. In other words there are a nine sitting Conservative MPs who have voted more strongly against the European Union than Mark Reckless.
There is currently speculation about which MPs might be next to switch their allegiance to UKIP. If an MP has voted against the European Union in Parliament that might be an indication they could consider membership of UKIP an attractive option.
The table below shows the Conservative, and ex-Conservative, MPs who have voted most strongly against the European Union. The percentages given show the degree of agreement with the “European Union – for” policy on PublicWhip.org.uk.
| Philip Hollobone | Con | 8.1% |
| Philip Davies | Con | 11.3% |
| Peter Bone | Con | 15.9% |
| William Cash | Con | 19.3% |
| Douglas Carswell | UKIP | 19.3% |
| Peter Tapsell | Con | 20.0% |
| Julian Lewis | Con | 21.5% |
| Stewart Jackson | Con | 21.6% |
| David Nuttall | Con | 21.9% |
| Brian Binley | Con | 22.3% |
| Mark Reckless | UKIP | 22.5% |
| Richard Shepherd | Con | 23.9% |
| John Whittingdale | Con | 24.2% |
| John Redwood | Con | 25.6% |
| Christopher Chope | Con | 25.7% |
| Bernard Jenkin | Con | 25.7% |
| Andrew Turner | Con | 26.0% |
| Anne Main | Con | 26.5% |
| Laurence Robertson | Con | 26.9% |
| Gerald Howarth | Con | 27.6% |
| William Hague | Con | 28.0% |
| Charles Walker | Con | 28.3% |
| John Baron | Con | 28.5% |
| Edward Leigh | Con | 29.6% |
| Roger Gale | Con | 30.7% |
| Zac Goldsmith | Con | 31.1% |
| James Clappison | Con | 31.1% |
| Richard Drax | Con | 31.1% |
| David Davis | Con | 31.4% |
| Jacob Rees-Mogg | Con | 32.1% |
Clicking on the percentages links to the details of each MP’s voting record on the EU on PublicWhip and it is possible to drill down from there to see how an MP voted in each relevant individual vote.
The following Labour MPs are those whose votes have been least supportive of the European Union:
| Ian Davidson | Lab | 30.5% |
| Kate Hoey | Lab | 36.8% |
| Kelvin Hopkins | Lab | 37.0% |
| John McDonnell | Lab | 42.0% |
| Austin Mitchell | Lab | 43.9% |
| Graham Stringer | Lab | 44.4% |
| Frank Field | Lab | 46.1% |
| John Cryer | Lab | 49.0% |
| Jeremy Corbyn | Lab | 50.0% |
| Roger Godsiff | Lab | 50.7% |
| Dennis Skinner | Lab | 51.4% |
| Gordon Brown | Lab | 52.8% |
| Glenda Jackson | Lab | 53.7% |
| Ian Lavery | Lab | 54.2% |
Recently elected Labour MP Mike Kane has been excluded as he has not yet had the opportunity to participate in many votes on the European Union.
House of Lords
Based on their voting records independents Janric Craig (who legislates under the pseudonym Viscount Craigavon) and William Herbert Laming (Lord Laming) have shown the greatest opposition to the European Union via their voting record.
There are seven members of the House of Lords who have voted more strongly against the European Union than UKIP member Leopold Verney (who legislates as Lord Willoughby de Broke). The other UKIP member of the House of Lords Malcolm Pearson (who legislates under the name Lord Pearson of Rannoch) has only voted moderately against the European Union.
The Conservative members of the House of Lords who have voted most strongly against the EU are:
| David Maclean (Lord Blencathra) | Con | 8.9% | |
| Michael Hardy Spicer (Lord Spicer) | Con | 9.2% | |
| Angela Browning (Baroness Browning) | Con | 9.4% | |
| John Wakeham (Lord Wakeham) | Con | 11.4% | |
| Jean Barker (Baroness Trumpington) | Con | 12.2% | |
Data
All the information shown above is available via PublicWhip.org.uk, specifically the page comparing individual MPs and members of the House of Lords with the policy on the European Union.
I have published a spreadsheet making it easier to work with the data.
4 responses to “The Next UKIP Defectors – Based on Parliamentary Voting Records”
In that Labour list you do have the usual suspects though. I mean, would you really expect Dennis Skinner to vote with the party line 100% of the time? But it isn’t just about Europe is it? UKIP sailed away from that single issue stance many years ago now so it’s not an entirely helpful way of looking at it. We know the Tories are split on it. They been for decades and by and large they live with it now and that doesn’t mean that anyone who has uncertainty about the EU will jump ship for that one issue.
This article has been cited by OnTheWight in their article: Is Andrew Turner thinking of jumping to UKIP?.