MICHAEL HOWARD hit trouble from the Right flank last night as the UK Independence Party (UKIP) promised to give a clear run at the next election to Conservative candidates who back withdrawal from the EU.

In a mischievous move designed to capitalise on a renewed outbreak of internal Conservative turmoil, the anti-European party told sitting MPs that it would not put up a candidate if they signed a letter supporting the UKIP’s policy of pulling Britain out.

The move was clearly aimed at destabilising Tory MPs who fear that an intervention from the UKIP, which took 12 seats in last month’s European elections, could cost them enough votes to make them vulnerable to a Liberal Democrat or even Labour challenge.

The strategy, which a UKIP source described yesterday as “deliberately very, very nasty”, is aimed at keeping Europe at the heart of the election campaign, and to force MPs in marginal seats to adopt a more Eurosceptic stance. With the UKIP achieving about 8 per cent in opinion polls, the party reckons that 20 or 30 MPs will feel sufficiently threatened to sign up to their letter, almost all of them Conservative.

Those targeted include Richard Shepherd and Bill Cash, both highly Eurosceptic Conservatives sitting on majorities of under 4,000, and Ian Liddle-Grainger.

The strategy emerged last night as Mr Howard found himself facing a wave of unrest from Conservative MPs over a new poll indicating that the party is level-pegging with the Liberal Democrats and a report suggesting that the party’s whips were trying to weed out some of the older “sun-tanned” MPs to make way for a younger breed.

Some of those named were threatening writs and claimed that the report was inspired by a desire to fill the Tory ranks with ultra-sceptics.

A UKIP source told The Times: “It is counterproductive for us to stand against an MP who has the same views as us. We’ll cause splits, certainly, at grassroots level in both Labour and Conservative parties. The Tories are the ones who will feel most vulnerable because they believe that the net effect of the UKIP on the Conservatives is negative. We might find 20 or 30 Tories that will sign this letter.”

Nigel Farage, leader of the UKIP in the European Parliament, hopes that the policy will keep the EU issue at the top of the election agenda, just as when Sir James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party made the same threat in the 1997 election demanding a referendum on the euro. Despite having no electoral history, the Referendum Party is thought to have unseated as many as 25 Conservatives, including the former minister David Mellor.

The UKIP’s threat will make it far more difficult for Mr Howard to maintain party unity on its EU policy, which is supportive of membership but wants various powers to be returned from Brussels to Westminster. “We are going to give Michael Howard one hell of a headache,” Mr Farage said. “Many Conservative grass roots activists are already so disappointed with their party’s EU policy that they have been actively campaigning for the UKIP.”

The UKIP’s strategy has to be formally agreed at the party’s national executive meeting in September, but approval is expected since it is supported by Mr Farage, Roger Knapman, the party’s leader, and almost all its MEPs.

The party has just sent out adverts to its 25,000 members asking for candidates at the general election, expected next year. Applicants will then be filtered down over the summer, and the party hopes to have adopted more than 500 by the end of October.

In the last election, it fielded 429 candidates and had a campaign budget of £1.25 million, but got only 4 per cent of the vote. This time it has a far wider base of support, with thousands more members, a strong network of local associations around the country and a better electoral track record.

Meanwhile, a Tory MEP launched a renewed attack on Mr Howard’s deal under which the Conservatives sit with the federalist European People’s Party (EPP) in the Parliament. Roger Helmer, a Eurosceptic MEP for the East Midlands, called the deal a “cosmetic device” which allowed the EPP to spend more than £500,000 of “our” parliamentary funding to promote its federalist agenda.

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