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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well there’s no doubt the party losing the most votes to UKIP is the Conservatives, 60% of people who voted UKIP on Thursday voted for the Conservatives in 2010. So what should Mr Cameron do? I’m joined now with their thoughts from Burgess Hill by the Conservative MP and former minister, Tim Laughton, and backbench Conservatives MPs with me here Dominic Raab and Peter Bone, a very good morning to you all gentlemen. I want to start with you Tim Laughton, there are two ways to go I guess in response to UKIP, you either watch them pack up their tents if they’re clowns and go away come the general election or do you respond with new policies?

TIM LAUGHTON: Well first of all we shouldn’t panic, secondly we shouldn’t be lurching to the right or anywhere else and thirdly, we do need to take them seriously, as some of us have been saying for some time. This was quite a dramatic result this week, a lot of people stuck two fingers up at all the traditional parties, they stuck their fingers up at ours a bit more than the others. It is also a matter of credibility. I don’t think a lot of people voted against the policies of the government in many respects, there’s a credibility problem. They don’t really believe that we are going to produce things like the referendum, that we really are making progress on immigration as they are. For those people who voted UKIP, we congratulate UKIP and they did well but this was a county council election. UKIP campaigned on immigration, on Europe, on foreign aid, UKIP are against Europe, against immigration, against foreign aid, we don’t know what they are for and we as a Conservative government need to make sure we set out absolutely clearly what we are for and what we are doing, very radically, on all of those issues, particularly Europe and immigration and that’s a message that’s got to be got across very firmly.

DM: Let me put that to some of your colleagues and this key issue, Dominic Raab, as Tim Laughton is saying there, do you have to be clearer about this issue of a referendum and do you have to bring it to this side of 2015?

DOMINIC RAAB: Well look, I think UKIP is a wake-up call and we certainly have got to take it very seriously. Actually if you look at the preference of UKIP voters by streets ahead the economy is the number one issue, secondly is immigration and interestingly those two reflect wider voter preferences, so the number one issue for us, and we mustn’t be distracted, is the state of the economy. I support ideas for a European referendum and I would certainly support that.

DM: I know that but what I am asking about is when? Would it be a good idea though before the general election to say to people you can have a referendum now which will give the Prime Minister a mandate about what to negotiate and actually then to go to the Germans, the French and the others and say I’ve got the British people behind me here?

DOMINIC RAAB: I’ve been calling for and talking about a referendum mandate since 2011 so I certainly think it’s a good idea, mainly because when we get to Europe we want to be taken seriously. I think it is very unlikely in coalition we are going to get that but one thing we certainly could do is put up for a vote in the House of Commons, a Bill on a referendum, to really highlight the difference between Labour, the Lib Dems and us and frankly their disdain for putting the EU issue to the British people. But I say again, let’s not pretend this is the key issue for UKIP voters or the public at large, it is the economy.

DM: Okay but is it the key issue for you, Peter Bone?

PETER BONE: In my area the number one issue is immigration from all our tracking surveys. In north Northamptonshire where you have two MPs, members of the Better Off Out group, myself and Philip Hollobone and the new Tory candidate for Corby, Tom Purseclough, who is a Eurosceptic, we did exceptionally well. UKIP lost a seat to us, we gained seats from Labour and we lost a seat by 25 votes to Labour, so if you have true blue policies – and for instance what I’d like to see the party do is campaign to come out of the EU, that would stir things up.

DM: Yes but the party that is campaigning to come out is UKIP and the only answer, you know this better than anyone, you’ve looked at it, the only answer to mass immigration to this country from Eastern Europe eventually is to leave the European Union because they are allowed to come here. You can put off the Romanians and the Bulgarians coming but they are allowed to come here.

DOMINIC RAAB: No, no, that’s not fair, Dermot … no, no, if you look at the figures, a big chunk of the migration comes from outside the EU, the EU by the way and the transitional controls is a big issue, a big problem but it’s not the ball game and in fact ironically this is an area where we’ve got quite a good story to tell. Net immigration has come down by a third. Sure, we need to do more, definitely it’s a key core issue, it’s not some fringe right wing issue. We’ve also actually got to hold UKIP’s feet to the fire and that doesn’t mean trading insults, I think that’s unprofessional in any walk of life …

DM: You mean by examining their policies?

DOMINIC RAAB: Much more scrutiny. The Times reckon that they have got £120 billion black hole in their tax and spending plans, that’s the kind of thing that if we are taking UKIP and Nigel Farage seriously that we are going to look at much more closely.

DM: Peter Bone, have you considered joining them? I mean UKIP seem to talk a lot of the same things that you’re saying.

PETER BONE: Oh I’m a true Conservative and always will be but the trick here, there was a tremendous Conservative vote, there were the Conservatives who voted Conservative and there were Conservatives who voted UKIP, the trick is to get us all together again and that’s what we’ve got to do.

DM: That certainly fits in very nicely, Tim Laughton, that’s the very question I wanted to put to you. I mean a lot of people that voted UKIP, a lot of the people that stayed with the Conservative party of course, want some kind of accommodation between you. Can you ever see that happening?

TIM LAUGHTON: Well look, we’re going to go into the election fighting as a Conservative party for a Conservative government, we’re not going to be fighting for a coalition government, be it with our current partners Lib Dems or with UKIP in the future. We have got some very strong messages to say and actually a good record on what we’re trying to do on Europe now, a wholesale renegotiation of our relationship with Europe, back to the trading bloc that most people thought that they were joining back in 1975 when they voted for it and if you don’t like that, there will be a referendum under the next Conservative government. It’s not an if or maybe, it’s a definite in or out referendum, that is very clear. On immigration, Dominic is absolutely right, we have so far reduced immigration by a third and there are lots more things we are doing and need to do to bring it down further and this is also about perceptions. In my part of the country where UKIP picked up a large slug of votes and seats, we don’t have a large scale immigration problem but it was an issue which came up time and time again on the doorsteps because people perceive it’s a problem and we have got to deal with that. We can deal with that as a Conservative party and it is the Conservative government that is going to get this economy sorted out so that when people come voting for their MPs at the next election, they are going to be voting for a party which has got a credible track record of getting the economy back on track, producing new jobs, keeping borrowing under control, producing good schools, maintaining the service in the NHS and things like that. That’s what we’re going to concentrate on and we’re not going to go into a coalition into order to achieve that.

DM: Okay, I want to stay with that issue of perceptions because one of the other important perceptions about your party, Peter Bone and Dominic Raab, I’m not talking about you personally, is being out of touch. That’s what you must have heard on the doorstep, being out of touch and posh and not dealing with ordinary people’s concerns. How do you address that when the Prime Minister appoints people like Jo Johnson into the heart of Downing Street policymaking?

DOMINIC RAAB: I have to say I didn’t meet anyone on the doorstep who raised Eton or appointments with me but I do think as a whole the political class is regarded as out of touch and that’s one reason UKIP has done very well.

DM: Not in particular the Conservatives and the posh boys? That came from Nadine Dorries, one of your colleagues.

DOMINIC RAAB: Absolutely. I think it is one of those things that gets thrown at us more when people feel discontented either with the state of the economy or other issues. I certainly do think it is correct that we have got to be much better at targeting and focusing and persuading what used to be called I suppose the working class or lower middle class vote, that we’re on their side, on that I am absolutely …

DM: And they went to UKIP.

DOMINIC RAAB: Some of them, a lot stayed at home but it is absolutely right, we have got to make sure that the hard working people that get out of bed, strive, struggle, know we are on their side and we have got to be a bit more aggressive in fighting for what we believe in.

DM: You seem to be denying you are out of touch and then accepting that you are a little bit.

DOMINIC RAAB: You asked me two … the out of touch thing hits the whole political class, I don't think it is specifically about Eton but there is definitely a stronger focus we need on that working aspirational vote.

DM: What do you hear, Peter Bone, do people feel your party is of them and for them?

PETER BONE: There is a perception of being out of touch. I’m an East Midlands seat, many people, a lot of working class votes in my constituency. I think what we say in Wellingborough and the surrounding area, which is slightly different, well considerably different to what the leadership is saying on questions, that does resonate and I think that’s what the party has to do. I’ll take one thing Tim said which I thought was slightly wrong, he talked about the Conservative government. Of course we don’t have a Conservative government, we have this terrible coalition and one of the things the Prime Minister has to do is dump these irrelevant Liberals and get on with running it as a Conservative government.

DM: Okay, let me throw that back to Tim Laughton, what about that? End the coalition now and campaign as pure Conservatives?

TIM LAUGHTON: Well the closer we get to an election, I think you are going to see a divergence between the Conservative part of the coalition and the Lib Dem part of the coalition. I am no fan of the coalition, I am certainly no fan of the Lib Dems but it was the responsible thing to do and I’m afraid we have got a long way still to go to sort out the economy and we can only do that if we’ve got a stable government. There are a whole load of things that the Lib Dems are holding us back from doing and we need to make that absolutely clear, why voting Conservative will be very different to having a part in a coalition as we’ve just had. It’s not realistic I’m afraid to say we can dump the coalition now, just as it’s not realistic to say we are going to go into coalition with UKIP ahead of an election. We need to articulate very clear Conservative policies, things that people vote Conservative for and expect them to deliver, being pro-family, which means we have got to get on with the business of producing the transferable marriage tax allowance that many of us have campaigned on for a long time, was in our manifesto, we haven’t done yet and we’re running out of time. We need to be strong on defence, people expect Conservatives to protect them, protect their liberties, protect them at home and overseas and people elect Conservatives to be responsible with their money and we have got a good track record on that but it’s taking time and people are impatient.

DM: Well we are nearly running out of time. I just want to bring in Dominic Raab on that issue of the Lib Dems, a lot of the things that Tim Laughton and Peter Bone have touched on, a lot of the things the Lib Dems are preventing you from doing are the very things that would attract the defectors to UKIP back to the Conservatives?

DOMINIC RAAB: Yes, I mean I don’t see it as a zero sum game. I wasn’t in favour of coalition in 2010 when I was asked but I think the worst of all worlds is to have this five year deal which quite rightly and understandably is supposed to bring stability and then halfway through throw our hands up in the air, I think that’s the worst of all worlds. We’ve got to try and make it work, there are bound to be differences of opinion and actually where we support things that the Lib Dems are trying to block like deportation reform or recognising marriage in the tax system, we should be calling their cards on this.

DM: But on these issues that would attract UKIP voters back, I’m thinking like overseas aid, even Europe itself, we had Simon Hughes sitting here saying it’s really positive, we have to get out there and fight for the European Union.

DOMINIC RAAB: The economy, I’m telling you now, for UKIP voters and for the electorate at large, the ballgame is the economy. There are other issues that come up high on the list like immigration but the fact is there is not this huge difference between UKIP voters and the electorate at large, I think that’s one myth that has been punctured by this local election result.

DM: But the crucial is that a lot of UKIP voters and others have thought that Europe is a problem when it comes to the economy, they are not exactly a shining example within the eurozone are they for rampant growth.

PETER BONE: That’s the problem, everyone says Europe is not an issue, of course Europe is all about the economy, that’s what it is about. Let’s dump day marriage, let’s cut back on overseas aid, those are things that Conservative party members want and that’s what UKIP voters want. If we could only bring the coalition together. Why not possibly, if we can get the endorsement of UKIP, stand as Conservative and UKIP candidates, as we used to stand as Conservative and Unionist candidates, as Labour used to stand as Labour and Co-operative candidates. Interestingly the government changed the law so you could have two party logos by the name of each candidate.

DM: Very interesting and on that note – the mind boggles – we must end it. Thank you very much indeed Peter Bone, Dominic Raab and Tim Laughton there, down the line.