Second UKIP London assembly member defects

Both of UKIP's London assembly members have defected to Robert Kilroy-Silk's new eurosceptic party Veritas.

At the weekend UKIP's leader in the assembly Damian Hockney announced he was leaving to become deputy leader of Veritas.

And on Monday Hockney revealed to ePolitix.com that his colleague at the assembly Peter Hulme Cross was also defecting.

The fact that both men have left will allow them to keep "party group status", which requires at least two members, giving them support staff and other benefits.

Hockney also told this website that UKIP's scheduled NEC meeting had been cancelled as a result of his move.

The all London AM said: "My colleague Peter Hulme Cross has just told me he is joining Veritas so we will be able to continue as a group simply called the Veritas group.

"I was quite happy for it to be called the Veritas UKIP group, because in terms of politics Peter and I have quite an independent relationship.

"We share views on certain things but as a eurosceptic party there are things we won't have the same view on, we don’t really mind about that, we will sometimes vote differently or think differently or at least discuss things.

"On switching party we both decided to think very differently about it give each other time, but he has come to the same decision as me to leave UKIP and join Veritas."

Hockney insisted he was not betraying the UKIP voters who had elected he and Hulme Cross at the last election because they voted to get Britain out of the EU and they were continuing that mission.

"As far as I'm concerned the party is starting to drift from its core aim, the reason why I joined in the first place," he said.

"People wouldn’t have voted for UKIP without a reason. They voted for a reason, and as far as I’m concerned its core aim was to get Britain out of the EU and we are sticking to that. We had other aims of course in the London assembly which we all stick by but the main thing is to use a cliché – the party is leaving us, not the other way round."