Yesterday Den Dover, Robert Atkins and Sajjad Karim all received more than 50% of the votes from a meeting of select members of North West Tories. ConservativeHome learnt that "there was some hostility" to Mr Karim at the meeting but he received the necessary votes to enjoy one of the top three places on the regional list. Because of changes made by the Party Board last year ordinary members can no longer place new and potentially more Eurosceptic candidates above sitting MEPs if those sitting MEPs have already been 'toplisted' by the kind of Regional Selection Committee that convened yesterday.
Mr Karim's 'toplisting' will be controversial. He only defected from the LibDems at the end of November after scoring badly in the LibDems' only selection vote. 66% of Tory members told ConservativeHome that they opposed special treatment for defectors. If the selection had been left to rank-and-file members they may well have preferred a longstanding Conservative activist to represent them. They may have also been unhappy to see Sir Robert Atkins, an opponent of David Cameron's EPP policy, from being ranked in the top three. We will now never know.
Since Mr Karim defected to the Conservatives he has been active in supporting North West Tory candidates and was instrumental in securing last week's defection of a LibDem Manchester councillor.
