Mark Reckless has been talking about moving to Ukip for months, those who know him say. It was only in the last two weeks that he decided he was definitely defecting, and only in the past few days that more people working for the party knew what was happening. Still, they managed to keep it under wraps to the extent that some journalists had gone home early, dismissing the reports of defections as overexcited chatter. The hall was gobsmacked when he appeared.
I understand that the Tory MP had a 'damascene moment' at the same summer 1922 Committee meeting where Douglas Carswell started to think that he should leave the Tories. MPs asked for further details of David Cameron's plan to renegotiate Britain's relationship with Europe, and it was at this point that Reckless started to suspect that he would be deeply unhappy with what the Prime Minister had planned for the future.
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