A former Conservative parliamentary candidate has joined UKIP, amid a row in the Hull West and Hessle constituency.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage welcomed Mike Whitehead's move, with Mr Whitehead citing a row with the local Conservative group for his decision.
The Conservatives said Mr Whitehead had been "sacked" as its candidate in the constituency last week.
He had previously resigned as a Tory councillor on East Riding Council.
Mr Whitehead will not be standing for UKIP in the general election because the party already has a candidate in the constituency. But he will stand in the local elections, which take place on the same day.
Mr Whitehead is the second district councillor from East Riding Council to join UKIP in recent weeks.
Mr Farage tweeted: "Just spoken to Tory parliamentary candidate for Hull West and Hessle, Mike Whitehead, who has now left the Conservatives and joined UKIP!"
He described it as a "hammer blow to Tory pretensions in the north of England".
Before UKIP's announcement on Monday morning, Mr Whitehead's profile as candidate was still on the Hull branch of the Conservatives' website.
But the Conservatives said: "This man is not our candidate for Hull West & Hessle. He was sacked last week.
"He refused to support the local Conservative council candidate - and so we wrote to him last week to say that his position was untenable and could not stand for us at the general election. We were already selecting a new candidate for this constituency.
"This is typical UKIP - cynical, misleading and utterly calculating to try and score political points."
Former Labour home secretary Alan Johnson is MP for Hull West and Hessle.
He is defending a 5,700 majority from the 2010 general election when the Conservatives finished third.
Labour's Jon Trickett, shadow Cabinet Office minister, insisted the move was "another huge blow" for the prime minister's authority.
"UKIP and the Tories increasingly share the same people as well as the same policies. Both stand for increased health service privatisation, extreme spending plans which threaten the NHS and further tax breaks for those at the top."
BBC political correspondent Chris Mason said the Conservatives might play the councillor's move down, but it would give Mr Farage something to smile about, especially as there had been plenty of stories about his parliamentary candidates making headlines for the wrong reasons.
The full list of general election candidates for all 650 UK constituencies will be published on 9 April.
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