Conservative campaign chief Michael Fabricant has revealed he never expected his proposal for a pact with 海角视频IP to succeed.
The Midland MP said his radical proposal last year was an attempt to convince his party to take the threat from 海角视频IP seriously – and to make more effort to win back voters who had defected to the Tories’ eurosceptic rival.
Mr Fabricant (Con Lichfield), Conservative vice-chairman responsible for Parliamentary campaigning, has been undergoing hospital treatment after suffering a torn retina in his left eye while on holiday.
READ MORE: {}
The condition, which the MP initially believed was a burst blood vessel, happened without warning as he was having dinner with friends in Montenegro.
He was being treated at the Western Eye Hospital in London and was due to undergo an operation under general anaesthetic.
In an earlier interview with Total Politics magazine, he admitted his suggestion last November that the Conservatives could consider a pact with 海角视频IP had not been entirely serious.
He said: “I never anticipated there could be a pact.
“I did it that way for two reasons. One, a lot of 海角视频IP supporters are natural Conservatives, and we should try to get them back in the fold.
Most Read
“And two, I was concerned the party was not taking 海角视频IP seriously enough. The reason I did it as a pact was to gain a lot of publicity, which I succeeded in doing. I made the point and made it effectively because we do now have a strategy to deal with it.”
Mr Fabricant also revealed that he converses with the Prime Minister, via text message. “When I send texts to David Cameron, I sign them off ‘Fab’, and he calls me ‘Fabs’”.
And he suggested the Conservatives could end the coalition with the Liberal Democrats before the next election.
He said: “It is in their interest and ours that the coalition continues, and I have no doubt it will.
“The only thing I do believe is very important, and lots of Conservative MPs do, is that we get to a stage prior to the general election where we can state very clearly what we want to achieve and – this will be a decision for No 10 – whether or not we break up the coalition a month or two before the election.”