Stewart Jackson

Eastleigh by-election: The Tories are suffering for gay marriage, and need to focus on migrants and a cost of living budget

It would be churlish to suggest that the Eastleigh by-election is ‘disastrous’, but coming third in a seat we polled almost 40 per cent in the general election is not good by anyone’s measure.

This is the price that has to be paid for gay marriage because of the drastic unpopularity of it with activists and supporters, who have been less inclined to get out and campaign on the streets because of it. The issue has been a direct recruiting seargeant for UKIP, and there’s anecdotal evidence across the country for UKIP.

There are two main lessons for me from this result. The first is that the government has to deal with the specific issue of Romanian and Bulgarian immigration as this was a key part of UKIP’s campaign. They have not convinced voters that they are serious about it, and they should have listened when I introduced my Ten-Minute Rule Bill on the EU Free Movement Directive in October as they could be well down the road by now with preparations for this.

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