The Huffington Post has obtained audio recording of the event hosted by the 'Conservative Voice' group in parliament on 5 November. Several Tory MPs were present to listen to the attack on their party's strategy, including eurosceptics Peter Bone and David Nuttall.
Ashcroft warned the MPs that the decision of the Tory leadership and campaign machine to attack Ukip supporters had failed. "They went through abuse from the Conservatives. The strategy was to call them fruitcakes, nutters, closet racists, you name it."
"So now you've got this group of Ukip voters, 95% of whom are decent people, you abuse them you thrash them and then you tell them they are coming home to daddy?"
A Ukip spokesperson said: "Astonishingly there seems to a be a Conservative who actually gets it. Fortunately there seems to be precious little chance of him being listened to be anyone in any position of responsibility in the Conservative party.
