WILL REBEL TORIES JOIN THEM?
Cryptic replies from Soubry and Boles as Umunna calls for defections
SEVERAL Conservative MPs could quit their party to sit as independents with the seven former Labour MPs in their breakaway political group.
Two gave cryptic answers yesterday when asked if they were planning to defect over deep Brexit divisions within the Tory party.
Asked if she would join the group, Anna Soubry, who is a leading campaigner for a second EU referendum, said only: ‘Today is all about Labour.’
Meanwhile Nick Boles, who is facing deselection attempts, issued a statement saying he would work with ‘MPs of all parties to stop a No Deal Brexit’.
Their non-denials come after the newly independent MPs issued an appeal to others from all parties to ‘ leave the old tribal politics behind’ and join their new grouping.
Chuka Umunna said: ‘ We’ve taken the first step in leaving the old tribal politics behind and we invite others who share our political values to do so too.’ Mr Umunna invited those ‘from a Labour background ... but [also] other political traditions’ to join them, adding: ‘We invite you to leave your parties and help us forge a new consensus on a way forward for Britain.’
Tory MP Miss Soubry has previously claimed that both of the main political parties were ‘broken’ and spoke of a ‘purple Momentum’ of hardline Brexiteers within the Tory movement.
‘They are in control of the associations,’ she has said. ‘We have a purple Momentum... Instead of standing up to this we are falling into the same trap as Labour. Both main parties are broken.’
Former attorney general Dominic Grieve yesterday told Radio 4’s PM programme that the Conservative Party was being ‘infiltrated’ by people he regarded as a ‘serious menace’.
But asked whether he would quit the party, he said he was a ‘Conservative to his fingertips’ and would try to reform the party from within.
‘I’m totally respectful of what they’re doing but I’m a Conservative and while I’m perfectly aware that my own party is in serious crisis, I will continue arguing my case within the Conservative Party.
He said threats to deselect Sir Alan Duncan, who supports the Prime Minister, was ‘compelling evidence that the party is being infiltrated and taken over by people with whom I have nothing in common and I regard as a serious menace to the future of our democratic principles’.
Defence minister Tobias Ellwood recently described the European Research Group of hardline Brexiteers as a ‘party within a party’.
In a statement yesterday, Mr Boles, who opposes a No Deal Brexit, said of the MPs: ‘They’re all good people and I understand completely why they felt driven to leave Labour.
‘I have not spoken with any of them about their plans and am totally focused on working with MPs of all parties to stop a No Deal Brexit on March 29.’
Antoinette Sandbach, another Tory supporter of a second referendum, said: ‘I remain a Conservative MP committed to the values set out by David Cameron who reformed the party to be a centrist party with modern conservative values.’
Other prominent Tory supporters of another referendum – Phillip Lee, Sarah Wollaston, Justine Greening and Heidi Allen – did not respond to requests for comment.
‘People I regard as a serious menace’