UKIP defector David Campbell Bannerman rocks the boat
Politics can be a nasty business. Just ask David Campbell Bannerman.
The Eastern MEP's defection from UKIP to the Conservatives has angered his former colleagues.
"Nobody really knew who he was - there would have been a bigger reaction if one of our local councillors had defected to the Conservatives," says Lisa Duffy, the UKIP Mayor of Ramsey in Cambridgeshire. She says she used to call Mr Campbell Bannerman a close personal friend.
"I was with him at a party just the other week and he gave no indication he was going to do this. How can he say we're just a pressure group? What's he been doing for the last five years?"
UKIP's leader Nigel Farage is also just as blunt about his former deputy, telling us: "I think he's been a disappointment to our members in the East. This defection is purely about his career. We'll just shrug our shoulders, ignore him and move on."
If he didn't have enough to cope with, Mr Campbell Bannerman's office in Cambridge has got a burst pipe, and he's had to base himself in Health Secretary Andrew Lansley's boardroom.
"You've got to be brave to do this," he says, "and you do get a lot of abuse and vitriol but I haven't changed my views. I am still 100% behind withdrawal from the EU," he said.
He hasn't wasted time espousing his views within the Conservative party either.
In an article for the influential Conservative Home he said the Tories should be changing their policy on Europe either by allowing an in/out referendum or ideally by advocating withdrawal.
"The situation is changing," he says. "The Euro is in trouble and may well collapse, more countries need bailing out, a growing number of people are questioning why we are still in the EU.
"I want to argue from within (for withdrawal). No one has painted a picture of a positive alternative of an independent Britain outside the EU trading in a friendly way."
So within a fortnight of joining the Tories he's already rocking the boat.
The Conservatives will tolerate Mr Campbell-Bannerman's views - many other MEPs and MPs share them - but they are in the minority and there are no plans yet to change party policy.