DAVID DAVIS, the Shadow Home Secretary, gave warning yesterday that voting for the UK Independence Party would be counterproductive as it would damage the Conservative Party.

Speaking at a fringe meeting held by The Times at the party’s annual conference in Bournemouth, Mr Davis sketched out his party’s plans to win the general election. He said it would be “ludicrous” to vote for the UKIP’s assault on the Conservative vote, comparing it to the rise of Sir James Goldsmith’s Referendum party in 1997.

Although the Referendum party won no seats, some believed they damaged the Conservatives enough to be responsible for some of Labour’s landslide win.

“It’s possible they could do what the Referendum Party did in 1997, and take 30 to 50 seats away from us,” Mr Davis told the meeting. “That then allowed the Labour party to go through and negotiate the Amsterdam Treaty with very little opposition, which is the exact opposite intention of the party; it’s ludicrous,” he said.

His comments were refuted by Nigel Farage, a UKIP MEP, who argued that although the Referendum Party mostly took votes from the Conservatives, the UKIP drew from all parties. “The only people who are going to kill the Conservative Party is the Conservative Party themselves,” said Mr Farage.

Divisions have opened up within the Conservatives about whether they should toughen up or soften their image in advance of the general election.

Mr Davis said he believed that the Tories’ recent focus on crime and immigration was a response to a change in the public’s priorities, not political strategy. “There is no lurch to the right in the Tory party,” he said.

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