DAVID CAMERON has every reason to fear the by-election triggered in Clacton by the resignation of Douglas Carswell and his defection to Ukip.

Not only will the by-election campaign focus on his spurious in-out referendum offer on the European Union but this is a seat that the Tories could lose, potentially plunging party members into despair just months before the 2015 general election.

Carswell, with nearly 23,000 votes, had a majority of 12,000 over Labour at the 2010 general election.

But there were also over 7,000 votes cast for the Liberal Democrat and BNP candidates — two parties in current freefall.

While the coastal Essex area is generally pro-Tory, Cameron’s party could find itself under pressure from not only Ukip but, depending on how the Tory vote splits, from Labour too.

But this will depend on what kind of campaign is imposed by Labour headquarters on its candidate Tim Young who currently leads his party’s group on Colchester Council.

Brewer’s Green has a remarkable knack of misreading situations and plumping for centralist approaches designed to enchant the Westminster in-crowd rather than taking account of local specifics.

If it opts for a pro-EU campaign in an attempt to distance itself from Tories and Ukip, it will fall flat on its face.

Labour’s greatest problem in recent years has been alienation of its working-class base by echoing the free-market austerity agenda of the conservative parties.

Ukip leader Nigel Farage has proven adept at
manipulating the media into concentrating on the EU issue, which chimes with public opinion, and avoiding his party’s well-documented far-right economic policies.

Opposition to the NHS as a publicly owned and operated service, support for a single rate of income tax and attacks on the public sector lie at the heart of Ukip economic policies.

Labour shadow Cabinet Office minister Michael Dugher is right to point out that Ukip is “against the interests of working people, wanting higher taxes for working families, huge giveaways for the rich, scrapping rights at work and charges to see your GP.”

This should form the basis of the by-election campaign, even if it means acknowledgement of wrong neoliberal policies pursued by Labour in government and a distancing of the party from those MPs who have benefited from the NHS privatisation bandwagon.

Carswell has already mimicked the outsider act put on by Farage, claiming that only Ukip can “shake up that cosy little clique called Westminster.”

Like his party leader he was privately educated — at Charterhouse public school — and worked in the City as an investment manager. 

He also served Cameron as a political adviser in the Tory Party’s policy unit. Some outsider!

Add to this his observation that the party he has just left “is full of wonderful people who want the best for Britain” and there is no doubt about where he stands politically.

However, there is little point in denying that many voters identify with the charges he makes against “tiny cliques” running governments, spin taking precedence over policy and an absence of political principle and passion.

Those are real problems that affect all major parliamentary parties, but Ukip provides no real alternative.

Its links with the City and the corporate sector mirror those of other Establishment parties, reflecting a political approach that ignores working-class priorities and living standards.

That’s the rotten reality in dire need of fundamental change.