The Gainsborough Constituency Conservative Association have welcomed Mr. Joshua Jones of Saxilby to the Conservative party following his decision to leave UKIP.

Joshua had been a member of UKIP since 2012 and was elected Regional Chairman for the East Midlands, of Young Independence, the youth wing of UKIP, in February 2014. Announcing his decision on Twitter he stated:

"I have decided to leave UKIP and join the Conservatives, a party with economic policies based on sound free-market principles, not populism."

Conservative Agent, Giles McNeill, said:

"We are really pleased to welcome Joshua to the local Conservative Association. Despite the portrayal of politics as 'Punch and Judy' it was nice to see a number of comments on Twitter from kippers wishing Joshua well. 

"We each come to politics with different values, and different perspectives on what's important. That is why the Conservative Party has a broad base of supporters, like former Liberal Democrats such as councillor Jackie Brockway at Saxilby to people like Joshua who come from UKIP."

Joshua added:

"It was clear from last week's article in the Market Rasen Mail that the policies of UKIP locally - under the headline 'Blue-KIP' - are very similar to the programme of the ruling Conservatives at West Lindsey District Council. They have also kept their promises they made to local residents at the last elections, so I want to support them."