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I blogged yesterday about the sad news that Stuart Wheeler, multi-millionaire founder of spread betting firm IG Index and long time Conservative donor, has announced his intention to vote UKIP at June’s Euro Elections and donate £100,000 to the party. Today there have been calls for him to be expelled from the party - from Ian Taylor MP, Iain Dale and ConservativeHome - but I have to disagree.

We cannot have members openly going around supporing rival parties, but there are several other issues here to consider. For starters so many members supported UKIP openly at the 2004 Euro Elections, and may do so this time, that such an expulsion may cause a mass walkout, or a mass expulsion.

Mr Wheeler deserves some reign as he has helped the Conservatives greatly, and indeed has said that he will back them at the Council Elections on the same day, and probably at the General Election. Could his defection back at the GE not be a good dog whistle to Eurosceptics?

Expulsion is also such a horrible and strong term. If you want him to really get annoyed, expel him, an act of escalation that could trigger further UKIP donations from him and make his return very unlikely indeed!

If they must do something, suspend him for a few months until after the vote, but do it politely and explain it to him as a purely symbolic act for the party unity. We must remember Churchill too defected then returned, and that we have tollerated much from Europhiles such as Ken Clarke - who totally undermined Hague - and MEPs, who have refused to leave the EPP, been openly hostile and worse!

The news reported on ConservativeHome that Australian election strategist Lynton Crosby - dubbed “The Wizard of Oz” - has signed up to run the campaign of the newly formed Libertas is indeed strange. It strikes me there are three possible outcomes here: either (1) Crosby has made a big business mistake by annoying long term client in the Conservatives and will never work for them again; (2) Libertas has offered a huge sum of money so he doesn’t care if the Conservatives never call again; or (3) he has made a business masterstroke by breaking what seemed a Conservative monopoly over his services and will reap the rewards of a bidding war at every election from now on.

Meanwhile, what exactly is Libertas? It’s founder, Declan Ganley, ran the NO campaign against the Lisbon Treaty [EU Constitution] in Ireland, so it’s been branded Eurosceptic. The Independent even branded it “far right”. Have they even bothered to Google it? It’s the first real pan-European political party, uses the EU colour scheme, the EU’s symbols and flag, the EU’s “.eu” domain name suffix - but perhaps more tellingly states on its home page that “Libertas is a pan-European party dedicated to creating a new, democratic and open European Union…Libertas wants a strong and successful European Union. A Europe for and of the people…Libertas wants to change how Brussels works and give power back to the people in Europe.” It does not advocate returning power to free nation states.