The Conservatives will not take Mark Reckless's fat arse back

There have been rumors today that Mark Reckless, now a member of the Welsh Assembly, is planning to leave Ukip and rejoin the Conservatives.

Reckless was elected at Rochester and Strood as a Tory in 2010, but resigned the seat in 2014 and won the subsequent by-election for Ukip. He fought the seat for Ukip at the 2015 general election, but was defeated by the Tories.

But if he has ambitions to re-rat (as Churchill put it), he may be disappointed.

The Daily Telegraph reports:

former Tory MP who defected to Ukip and is rumoured to be considering joining the Tories will be blocked from returning the Conservative Party. 

Mark Reckless, a member of the Welsh Assembly, has allegedly applied to sit alongside the Conservatives. However The Telegraph understands that he will be barred from formally rejoining the tories. 

There are suggestions that he will instead apply to sit alongside Conservative members of the Welsh Assembly. Mr Reckless did not answer calls or respond to messages.

The paper also reminds us that:

David Cameron, the former Prime Minster, allegedly launched an extraordinary attack on Mr Reckless at the time of his defection, accusing him of betraying activists who had worked to get his "fat arse" on the Commons benches.

The "breathtaking hypocrisy" of Mark Reckless

Robert Hutton spells out how little Reckless can be trusted for Bloomberg:

Mark Reckless, who last month became the second Conservative lawmaker to defect to the U.K. Independence Party, is focusing his campaign to hold his seat on blocking a proposal he backed when he was a Tory. 

Leaflets going out to voters in Rochester & Strood attack a “Tory Stitch-Up” over a plan to build 5,000 houses in Lodge Hill, a rural area that’s one of Britain’s most important nightingale colonies. ...

Reckless was less troubled by the area’s wildlife in March 2013, when he made a speech in Parliament objecting to delays in giving the development the go-ahead. “The comparison to be drawn is between those 84 nightingales and homes for 12,000 people and jobs for a further 5,000 people,” he said. 

Nick Boles, who was then the Tory planning minister and responded to Reckless’s speech, today attacked his former colleague. “Breathtaking hypocrisy,” he wrote on Twitter. “He lobbied me repeatedly in favor of development at Lodge Hill. Rochester & Strood deserve better.” 

In 2013, Reckless was clear that the development should go ahead. He told Parliament that it had been delayed because “a study of some description has discovered that 84 nightingales might use the site.” He warned that delay would cause economic damage. “We are told by the prime minister that we are in a global race, but it is not clear that that message has yet filtered through,” he said.

Wreckless Eric: Whole Wide World

Thanks to Mark Reckless for reminding me of this single from 1977.

Wreckless Eric (real name Eric Goulden) was a stalwart of Stiff Records in those days. He later fell out with the company and moved to France and then the United States, where he still plays.

The difference between Brooks Newmark and Mark Reckless

Newmark was reckless: Reckless is a no mark.