‘SACK’ REBEL MPS AND GET ON WITH BREXIT
DAILY Express readers yesterday joined calls to sack the Tory rebels who sided with Labour in a bid to derail Brexit.
As demands to kick the 11 Remain MPs out of the party grew, the group vowed to carry on trying to frustrate the will of the people.
Some, including Anna Soubry and Antoinette Sandbach, were seen discussing their “victory” over glasses of white wine in Parliament.
Fellow Tory Nadine Dorries called for all of them to be sacked – and was backed by
an overwhelming majority of Daily Express readers. In a telephone and text poll, 2,192 wanted the rebels sacked and just 38 believed they should escape punishment – a majority of 98.3 per cent.
Ms Dorries said the rebels’ true colours emerged as they rejected concessions offered by the Government to pass an amendment calling for a “meaningful vote” in Parliament on the final Brexit deal and were “high as kites on the vapour of their own self-importance”.
Tory MP Peter Bone said: “You really have to ask which bit of democracy these people don’t understand. There is an issue of sour grapes here because many of them are former ministers who have lost their jobs, but actually people need to realise that what they were trying to do is stop Brexit.
“This is not a normal decision for MPs because we delegated the decision to the British people in a referendum and most people just want us to get on with it.”
Fellow Tory MP David Davies said: “These arrogant people just think that the views of ordinary, decent people who read papers like the Daily Express shouldn’t be listened to and they should ignore the referendum result.
“I am sure voters will take notice of what they have done and the contempt they have for democracy.”
Labour peer Lord Adonis, who is still a Government adviser, revealed that the rebellion was the first step in trying to reverse Brexit.
Veteran Labour MP Kate Hoey, who backs Brexit and voted with the Government, said: “This comment by Lord Adonis shows what many of those voting last night really want – stopping the UK leaving the EU by any means.”
Led by former minister Dominic Grieve, the other rebels were Heidi Allen, Ken Clarke, Jonathan Djanogly, Stephen Hammond, Oliver Heald, Nicky Morgan, Robert Neill, and Sarah Wollaston.
Theresa May could sack them by removing the whip, effectively booting them out of the party. They would be allowed to continue as independent MPs until the next general election, but would be forbidden from standing again as Conservative candidates.
In 1992 John Major withdrew the whip from Eurosceptic Tory MPs who rebelled against the Maastricht Treaty. However, they were reinstated by the time the 1997 election took place.
The anger over the rebels’ actions was heightened when the European Parliament’s Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, who wants to punish Britain for voting to Leave, declared the Government defeat was “a good day for democracy”.
Mr Grieve and his fellow Remainers have already threatened another backbench revolt as they seek ways to use parliamentary procedure to overturn the referendum vote. He said: “I hope very much it won’t be necessary because I have no desire to defeat the Government or be involved in the Government’s defeat a second time.” He added: “I’m sorry if colleagues think ill of me but it’s not going to affect what I do one jot.”
THE hypocritical selfimportance of Tory Remoaner rebels led by Dominic Grieve MP would be laughable were it not so dangerous for the future of our country. Pompously claiming their actions are simply procedural and intended to strengthen the rights of parliament, their rebellion undermined the fragile confidence building around Theresa May’s Government since her successful completion of phase one of the Brexit negotiations. By doing so, it played into the hands of Jeremy Corbyn, bringing the prospect of a disastrous Marxist Labour government closer to hand. Ever two-faced about his own attitude to Brexit, Mr Corbyn crowed that it was a “humiliating loss of authority” for Mrs May and she had “resisted democratic accountability”.
What utter nonsense, but more was to come from sanctimonious Remainers. “This is a victory for British parliamentary democracy,” said Labour MP Chuka Umunna. But is parliament not supposed to express the will of the people who vote for these MPs?
Poll after poll shows they want their parliamentary representatives to get on with the business of Brexit and make it work, not endlessly frustrate and slow the process. We’ve already had a referendum and then a “meaningful” and overwhelming parliamentary vote in support of triggering the process under Article 50. What more do these rebels want?
ACTUALLY they want anything that drags out the process of Brexit to the point where they hope everyone will finally give up on it. But by constantly undermining the dogged work of Mrs May and her Government this handful of deluded Tory rebels enforce a sense of never-ending chaos that makes Mr Corbyn’s Marxist fantasyland look like a welcome alternative.
Their hypocrisy is breathtaking. Tory rebel leader Mr Grieve MP was keen to promote his so-called integrity by declaring on BBC’s Newsnight that he was proud to do the right thing by his constituents. Er, except that a majority of his South Bucks constituents voted Leave.
So where does that put him? Clearly at odds with his voters, but he’s not alone. So many Labour and Tory MPs who voted against Mrs May’s Brexit legislation this week come from areas that voted Leave and yet their representatives feel entitled to ignore their wishes for the supposedly greater good of parliamentary process. These are Remoaners grabbing any weapon they can to frustrate the Government enacting an effective Brexit.
It is yet another example of the liberal elite doing all they can to ignore a democratic decision because it offends their supposedly better judgment. Their self-satisfied arrogance is the reason why voters have such a low regard for politicians and Westminster. It is why, when given the opportunity, they are only too keen to disrupt the cosy stitch-up and bring in outsiders.
Yet again this week polls show straight-talking backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg MP as the overwhelming grassroots choice to lead the Conservative Party. Despite his privileged background, he understands that listening to voters and their concerns is the most important part of his job. Not lecturing them on how misguided they are.
In the meantime in the real world, British banks are defying gloomy Brexit forecasts by shifting just six per cent of their jobs from London. Manufacturing exports are up and so was economic growth in the last quarter. Business leaders are always looking for stability and confidence and sterling rose off the back of Mrs May’s positive conclusion to the first phase of Brexit negotiations last week.
NOW all that is being jeopardised by the reckless self-regard of a handful of Tories and the shameless mischief making of Labour who are not putting country before party as they claim. If they were, they would stop messing around and back Mrs May’s efforts to make Brexit a success. That is what the country wants.
As for the crudely opportunistic Mr Corbyn, he is most definitely putting the interests of the Labour Party before country, especially the majority of their working class supporters who voted Leave. But there again the Labour Party has long since ceased to be about representing the working class.
Ever since PM Gordon Brown insulted a loyal Labour Party voter by calling her a bigot because she dared to voice her concerns about uncontrolled migration, Labour has become an increasingly middle class party more in touch with North London moaners than deprived Northern communities.
Momentum’s brutal ousting of traditional Labour councillors across the country is just hastening that process. The only honourable exceptions to this are Labour MPs Frank Field and Kate Hoey who defied Mr Corbyn to vote in support of Mrs May this week.
That Mr Grieve and his Tory rebels could think by voting to defeat the Government they are doing anyone any favours apart from Corbyn’s Labour Party shows how far removed they are from the realities of life beyond parliament.
Hopefully this first defeat for Mrs May since becoming PM will be seen as just another minor procedural setback. But from outside the Westminster bubble it looks like yet another attempt, by an out-of-touch elite, to screw with the results of a referendum that finally gave us a chance to say what we really feel about the EU and mass migration.
That vote was about taking back control, not handing it over to self-obsessed, gameplaying politicians.
‘Grabbing any weapon to frustrate Brexit’