The Conservatives fought the wrong campaign against Mark Reckless (pictured) - and have paid the price

Our defeat in the Rochester and Strood by-election demonstrated the complete futility of trying to outflank Ukip on the Right.

We fought the wrong campaign against Mark Reckless and have paid the price.

In truth, at this stage of the electoral cycle, I doubt there is any campaign that could have held the seat for our party.

But at least one that was upbeat, positive and optimistic could have rolled the pitch for the bigger battle that lies ahead next May. Instead, we chose to bang on about immigration and its impact on public services.

The Conservative Party is bigger than this.

We know that Ukip’s leadership dislikes foreigners – but that is their problem, not ours.

So why, through our own electoral literature, did we try so hard to legitimise Nigel Farage’s scaremongering?

The reality is that Rochester and Strood is a constituency with less than three per cent unemployment and below average levels of immigration.

There is a fair chance that those immigrants who do live in the area are as much involved in delivering public services as they are in using them.

At no point during the by-election campaign was it credible or sensible for the Conservative Party to fight on any other ticket than the economy.

Instead of putting aside our moral compass by masquerading as Ukip-lite, we should have ruthlessly focused on the fact that over the past four years, despite the dead weight of the Liberal Democrats, we have turned the economy around and saved the country from going down the drain.

That’s quite an achievement given the profligacy of New Labour and its toxic legacy.

As well as being economically competent, the Conservative Party I know and revere is also full of decent, compassionate men and women who care desperately about their country and share a common desire to improve the lot of all its people – regardless of their race, creed or colour.

The language of Ukip and its unforgiving attitude towards difference is alien to the values that I and most of my colleagues hold dear.

I love my country. I know that for most of my fellow citizens it remains a wonderful place to live, work and raise a family. We enjoy freedoms and advantages that all parts of the world envy.

My party, and the Prime Minister, have a great story to tell and yet we seem reluctant to tell it.

Instead, in recent weeks and months we have allowed the terms of the debate to be framed and set by the pernicious, dripping, corrosive cynicism of Ukip.

We have too easily turned our attention away from the important task of rebuilding the economy and the nation’s wealth to dance to Ukip’s tawdry tune – a tune, as recently chirruped by one of Ukip’s celebrity supporters, that disgracefully lays the real and imagined ills of our country at the feet of immigrants.

As Conservatives, we have a duty to challenge such nonsense and nastiness. Why? Because the vast majority of the Poles, Greeks, Spaniards and Portuguese coming to our country are working their guts out to build a future for themselves and their families.

While losing to Ukip rightly hurts, the Conservative’s defeat in Rochester and Strood presents David Cameron (pictured) with a precious opening for some serious housekeeping

These people are not bad people. Far from it: they are invariably good people with good intentions.

It is the desire for self-improvement that drives Europeans to our shores but also drives many British citizens to build new lives in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Of course, the UK should not be a soft touch.

Thanks to the Conservative-led coalition, immigration from outside the EU is now more strictly controlled than at any time since the 1990s.

More needs to be done to restrict access to benefits.

However, I cannot be alone in feeling queasy when I read that Mark Reckless, Ukip’s newly elected Member of Parliament, is debating the most appropriate mechanism for deporting Poles from the UK.

Many of these people’s grandparents fought bravely in the skies above our country, defending our towns and cities from the Luftwaffe.

The proof of this courage and sacrifice can be found in our Polish war cemeteries.

In my own constituency of Broxbourne, I represent 10,000 people of Italian descent, many of whom came over after the war to work in our greenhouse industry.

They are assimilated – their children are assimilated and their grandchildren are assimilated.

They love their Italian heritage, but with the birth of each new generation they become more and more British.

My Italian/British constituents are wonderful contributors to the borough, bringing with them great food, great parties and great fun.

I ask: which of them is to be deported under Ukip’s repatriation scheme?

So I and many of my colleagues are about as far removed from the Ukip view of life as it is possible to get.

If people feel that Mr Farage’s narrow vision for the UK and its place in the world is one that they can buy into, then they should have the chance to vote for him

While the canvassing conversations will be courteous, there will be no nudges and winks on the doorstep from us.

If people feel that Mr Farage’s narrow vision for the UK and its place in the world is one that they can buy into, then they should have the chance to vote for him.

Ukip is now as much the enemy of the Conservative Party, and the future prospects of our nation, as Ed Miliband’s Labour.

While losing to Ukip rightly hurts, the Conservative’s defeat in Rochester and Strood presents David Cameron with a precious opening for some serious housekeeping.

By inclination he is optimistic and ambitious. This optimism and ambition for our country should now be given free rein to course through our forthcoming campaigns.

His PR advisers and media spinners need to be told, in the firmest of terms, to follow his lead.

In the fight for votes, there can be no deals or pacts between Ukip and Conservative Members of Parliament. The Prime Minister needs to make clear that you either stand for us or for them.

You fight a Conservative campaign around hope and a growing economy that provides jobs, careers, homes and an increase in living standards – or a Ukip campaign based around suspicion, cynicism and the promotion of fear.

Anyone – MP or adviser – who is unable to get on board with the Conservative vision for a better tomorrow must be shown the door.

The Prime Minister should use the next meeting of the Parliamentary Party as an opportunity to ask those colleagues who feel more attracted to Ukip’s policies than our own to identify themselves.

He can then politely but firmly invite them to leave the party and take their chances in May with Mr Farage. I suspect that they will not fare well.