The Trouble With Dan Hannan

Following last night's dinner with Constituency Chairmen, the low but audible buzz is of a party within the Conservative Party. But Hannan is not a member of either House of Parliament. For that matter, even if Lord Pearson becomes Leader of UKIP, with all his access to potential donors and defectors, he will still be in the Lords, not the Commons.

A proper threat would not be confined to the issue of the EU, and even on that issue it would not be about a referendum, but about the restoration of the supremacy of British law, including of the United Kingdom's historic, internationally lawful fishing rights. Rather, a proper threat would be the secession of two dozen or more morally and socially conservative, full-spectrum patriotic Members of the House of Commons. No such threat exists, because nowhere near that many such MPs exist, with as good as none expected in the next Parliament.

Well, not as Tories, anyway. The rest of us are free to make our own arrangements. As we must.