17:15

Ukip’s north-east regional chairman, Steve Turner, has defected to the Conservative party after saying that the anti-EU party was riddled with “infighting and poor organisation”.



Turner, who was regional director of Vote Leave ahead of the EU referendum last June, said Ukip was no longer the better option for pro-Brexit voters and that the party would struggle in the snap general election.

He told the Guardian: “I’ve felt quite disappointed for some time in the lack of direction since the referendum. I thought we would adapt and grow and move into a reliable option for a post-Brexit party and I didn’t see any sign of that coming across.”

Turner’s resignation is a huge blow to Paul Nuttall’s party which has pinned its hopes on winning at least two parliamentary seats in the heavily pro-Brexit north-east.

Nuttall, who announced on Thursday that he would stand in this election but did not reveal in which seat, is due to visit Hartlepool on Friday.

Turner said he did not believe Nuttall would stand in Hartlepool, where it came runner-up by 3,000 votes in the 2015 election, because if he lost it could prove “fatal” for the party.

“If Paul Nuttall was to stand in Hartlepool and lose what is the party’s number one or number two target – that on its own would finish Ukip,” Turner said.

“People would say if your leader can’t win in the best chance you have ... I think the risk would be too great.”

Turner said he had spoken to “an awful lot of Ukip supporters” who plan to vote Tory on 8 June and that he believed a “significant number of members” would not renew their membership for another year.

