Guido understands Steven Woolfe seriously considered defecting to the Tories this weekend, before it emerged Diane James was standing down. Woolfe met with several top Tories over the last few weeks and was close to agreeing to join the party. It is understood that David Davis and Patrick McLoughlin were involved in trying to woo him over. Woolfe admits in a statement:

“I have been enthused by the start to Theresa May’s premiership. Her support of new grammar schools, her words on social mobility and the growing evidence that she is committed to a clean Brexit prompted me, as it did many of my friends and colleagues, to wonder whether our future was within her new Conservative Party.”

What was it about the vacancy at the top of UKIP that made him change his mind?