Allison Pearson
Heidi Allen has long been a Lib Dem in Conservative clothing
Do they not understand there is no longer such a thing as a Tory safe seat?
Heidi Allen seems to have been rather confused. The former Conservative MP, now interim leader of Change UK, denied rumours that her constituency association was talking about deselecting her. Rumours which I have reason to believe she knew were true. A few months ago, I tweeted that Allen’s South Cambridgeshire constituency association was so unhappy that the MP was in danger of losing her job. Allen swiftly tweeted back: “Ummm… no.”
Ummm… yes, Ms Allen. South Cambs is my area, and people I know said that they attended a dinner party where someone who bore a striking resemblance to Heidi Allen wailed that the members hated her and were about to deselect her.
She was right about that. Many local Tories were absolutely spitting. And rightly so. After the referendum, Allen, a Remainer, had vowed to respect the Leave victory in a heartfelt speech: “We might not all like the result… [but] the minute we ignore the democratic will of the people in this country, we are slipping very quickly towards the banana republic I don’t want to live in.” That turned out to be another instance of Allen’s – ahem – forgetfulness. Along with Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Dominic Grieve, Allen was soon working to undermine the will of the people and to reverse the Government’s Brexit policy, all the while conspiring with the Opposition and raising her own profile. “A ghastly selfpromoter forever flicking her hair on late-night TV when she should be representing us,” snarked one critic.
Allen even managed to embarrass herself with a gauche, scarcely credible, creepy-crawly tweet to arch-eurocrat Guy Verhofstadt: “Would you give an extension Guy if we secure a second referendum please?”
Ugh! Has there ever been a more vomit-tastic tweet by a member of Parliament? And who does she mean by “we”? Certainly not people like me who voted in good faith for Allen. Definitely not the majority of British people who are vehemently opposed to the so-called “People’s Vote” favoured by Allen and her Brussels sprouts.
“Why should anyone trust what you say?” demanded Victoria Derbyshire of the Tory defector this week on her BBC show. Derbyshire had just played a damning video of Allen’s “I support the result of the referendum” speech.
“That’s a good question,” said a stunned Allen before improvising some guff about expecting the Prime Minister to have delivered a deal that
would have satisfied her. What would that be, then? Remain Plus Plus, delivered to Monsieur Verhofstadt in an envelope sealed with a kiss?
In any company, if a director were found to be consorting with rivals in an attempt to undermine the firm’s negotiating position during a major deal, that would be it. Gross misconduct! P45! Leave the building immediately, escorted by security. And what does the Conservative Party do to disloyal, double-crossing MPS like Allen and Grieve? Where’s the outrage?
There was plenty of outrage when Grieve’s Beaconsfield constituency association finally passed a vote of no confidence in him on Friday. Outrage against the Tory rank and file. Senior backbenchers, and even pro-brexit ministers, queued up to defend dear Dominic, claiming that there should be room for the arch-europhile in the “broad church” of the Conservative Party. The splendid fellow had been toppled by appalling ex-ukip interlopers, they said, a claim the ag-grieved one was swift to broadcast.
That is not what people who attended the Beaconsfield meeting saw. The vast majority were party loyalists of long standing. One man said: “There were ladies in the row in front of me who had been Conservatives since university.” So great was said ladies’ distrust in the democratic process that they “demanded their votes be counted, right there, in the same room”.
Victoria Atkins, a Home Office minister, told BBC Five Live: “We will not stand for that sort of behaviour.”
What, behaviour like Grieve voting to trigger Article 50 before leading efforts to sabotage the whole thing, remove no deal from the table and chuck away our best negotiating card? Behaviour like Grieve, conspiring with John Bercow to take control of parliamentary business away from his own government and giving comfort to Corbyn and his mirthless Marxists?
No, not that kind of behaviour, silly! That’s perfectly acceptable, apparently. Atkins meant the “sort of behaviour” where actual unpaid Conservative Party volunteers, who are a teeny bit fed up of their MP making a mockery of the 2017 general election manifesto, say: “Enough is enough, let’s boot the blighter out!”
Honestly, I thought that the shenanigans of the past few weeks had robbed me of the capacity to be shocked. But the spectacle of the Conservative closed-shop of safeseaters defending their chum against an entirely justified charge of treachery was simply gobsmacking. Do they really not get it? Do they not understand that, thanks to the antics of Grieve, Allen and Sir Oliver “Wetwin” (as we call him in our house), there is no longer such a thing as a Tory safe seat? That voters, including our party’s poor bloody infantry, are haemorrhaging trust in the Conservatives as they realise that there are zero consequences for long delays, broken promises, incompetence and betrayal?
I have the utmost respect for MPS like Johnny Mercer and Caroline Flint, both Remainers, who understand why it’s vital for the electorate’s faith in democracy that an orderly Brexit is delivered, even if it means hard and unpalatable compromise. They need to have a serious word with some of their arrogant, hard-of-hearing colleagues.
Earlier this week, speaking as the interim leader of Change UK, Allen called for a rise in income tax for higher earners. Proof, as if any more were needed, that her association members were right all along. Their MP was (and still is) a Lib Dem entryist without a Conservative bone in her body.
So much that is clearly wrong to ordinary, decent people is tolerated, even condoned, by a corrupt, selfsatisfied ruling class which, like Grieve, peers down its patrician nose at the stupid plebs. Not for much longer. If Conservative HQ won’t get rid of MPS making a mockery of democracy, then a general election surely will. What’s to stop us voting in a comedian with no political experience as Ukraine looks set to do? Vic Reeves for PM! At least the laughs would be intentional.
The deselection row is just one more illustration of how painfully out of sync Parliament is with the people. It really doesn’t matter whether MPS like Allen, Grieve and Wetwin. What matters is the dim view which the voters they represent take of them.
Of course the modern Tory party needs to be a broad church, but it doesn’t need to be Notre Dame. A normal parish church will do.