Pro-Remain MPs quit Tory Party
THREE pro-Remain Tory MPs have left the Conservatives and signed up to the new Independent Group.
Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston hit out at Theresa May’s ‘disastrous’ handling of Brexit as they quit. At a press conference, they accused the UK prime minister of throwing away the modernisation agenda begun by David Cameron and letting the party be taken over by right-wing Brexit hardliners.
Ms Soubry said she would not stay in the Conservatives to ‘skirmish on the margins when the truth is the battle is over and the other side has won’.
She said: ‘The right wing, the hardline anti-EU awkward squad that have destroyed every leader for the last 40 years are now running the Conservative Party from top to toe. They are the Conservative Party.’
She urged ‘fellow one-nation Conservatives’ and ‘like-minded Lib Dems’ to break away from their parties and join the new grouping. Speaking ahead of their resignations, Tory grandee Kenneth Clarke said he could think of ‘half a dozen’ Conservatives who might quit the party unless it changed direction.
Mrs May could face ‘quite a lot’ of ministerial resignations unless she ruled out a no-deal Brexit, he said. A Downing Street spokesman said the three MPs’ Conservative associations were now free to select new general election candidates, but he was not aware of any central directive to do so.
He said he was not in a position to rule out their return to the party after Brexit.