The news that UKIP MEP Marta Andreasen has defected to the Conservatives will no doubt provoke some celebrations at Tory HQ in Eastleigh tonight. She is the second one to do so, following in the footsteps of David Campbell-Bannerman, who re-ratted last year. She cites Nigel Farage’s dictatorial leadership style as the reason for her defection. I suspect the real reason is that she stood little chance of being reselected by UKIP.

To say Andreasen’s behaviour is flaky would be an understatement. My experience of her is that she is also not to be trusted, and the Tories should be very wary of her. Back in 2009 she and I had agreed that her book would be published by my new company, Biteback Publishing. We spent quite a bit of money editing the book but she went completely silent and I could never get hold of her. A month later I discovered quite by chance that the book had been published by someone else. I was livid. We were out of pocket and she had completely betrayed my trust. I have not spoken to her since. She refused to answer emails about meeting the cost of the editing. I threatened to go public about it and wrote to Lord Pearson, the then UKIP leader about it. Suddenly a cheque appeared – not from her, but from him.

Only last month she was calling Cameron’s position on Europe “naive”. This is what she told the Oxford Mail…

He made a great speech but he obviously doesn’t know Brussels. Mr Cameron fundamentally fails to understand the federal EU freight train. Whilst flexibility sounds great and was probably dreamed up by the Prime Minister whilst sitting in his slippers in Chequers, there is a different reality in Brussels. I can assure the Prime Minister that there is no such thing as flexibility when it comes to the EU’s objective: a deeper federal Europe where member states’ sovereignty becomes an anachronism. His speech therefore was naive. The train is on a one-way track.

The Tories should be very careful of this woman. I know from others that there have been other incidents which show her to be, shall we say, a full pesetas short of a euro.

I’ll leave the last word to Nigel Farage…

The Conservative Party deserve what’s coming to them. The woman is impossible.