Tory Madrasa Suffers UKIP Split

For an organisation that gets its alumni onto the Tories’ Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (PPC) lists, and into positions of influence within the party, the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF) is doing less than well in keeping its faithful friends on the Blue Team’s straight and narrow right now, as some of its best-known supporters are fetching up not at CCHQ, but on the staff of UKIP.

Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his fellow saloon bar propper-uppers achieved one notable former YBF recruit when Mr Thirsty engaged the services of Raheem “call me Ray” Kassam, who styled himself “Mr Conservative”, and later claimed to be a “Goldwater Conservative”, as his personal spinner, since when the Kippers have been getting a progressively less good press.

Still, I’m sure that “call me Ray” is not responsible for UKIP and its leader attracting an increasing amount of ridicule, including the entry into youth speak of the phrase “looks a bit UKIP”, which, let us not drive this one around the houses for too long, is another way of saying “creepy”. And, as the Mirror has now revealed, Kassam is not the only YBF fan who has joined the Farage Fringe.

“Ukip hires City barrister to keep 'bad stuff' hidden, leaked documents reveal” reads the headline, and the article continues “National executive committee meeting minutes from June 2013 detail how Matthew Richardson became Ukip secretary. They state Mr Richardson’s role as party secretary would be deciding ‘whether to take injunctions out’ when Ukip is criticised in the media”. There’s more.

“And they suggest the party may have skeletons in the closet which he has been tasked to hide. The minutes state: 'We need to ensure all of the bad stuff is kept out of the public domain … As party secretary (Mr Richardson) would try to ensure that we keep a tight rein on things'”. So who is Matthew Richardson? Well, he appears wary of letting people know too much about himself, and has no extant Twitter feed.

But, as he is one of the YBF’s staff, we do know that he “is a former Conservative Future National Deputy Chairman”. Conservative Future (CF) is the current incarnation of what used to be known as the Young Conservatives. Richardson works closely with YBF head man Donal Blaney, so much so that he helped Blaney to serve an injunction via Twitter to stop someone who had been posting using the same name.

Think about that. The YBF attracts many prominent Tory MPs and MEPs to its gatherings, including Party Chairman Grant “Spiv” Shapps and Eric Pickles. Yet it has one of its staff working for, and one has to assume supporting, the Kippers. Donal Blaney’s outfit would not have its staff working for Labour, the Lib Dems, or the Greens. Are they hedging their bets? Can the Tories still count on the loyalty of their alumni?

And will the Tories keep on buying all that training from the YBF? Watch this space.