[Sir James Goldsmith] has got nothing to be smug about, and I would like to say that 1,500 votes is a derisory total. We have shown tonight that the Referendum Party is dead in the water, and Sir James can get off back to Mexico knowing your attempt to buy the British political system has failed.

Quoted in Brian Cathcart, "Were you still up for Portillo?" (Penguin Books, 1997), pp. 63-4