Army hero MP ‘gagged by Tories’

A LEADING Conservative today accuses his party of trying to block his election to Parliament because of his long-running campaign to improve the care of war veterans.

Johnny Mercer, a former soldier who served in Afghanistan, claims that Tory HQ tried to gag him when he was hoping to win his Plymouth Moor seat at the 2015 Election.

Mr Mercer, a Captain in the Royal Artillery, has been an outspoken critic of the care that soldiers receive after they return from Iraq and Afghanistan, highlighting the suicide rate and poor mental health among traumatised veterans. His campaign was vindicated last week when Theresa May pledged in the Conservative manifesto to set up a special unit in Whitehall dedicated to the needs of former soldiers.

Now in his new book, We Were Warriors, serialised in today’s Mail on Sunday, the 35-year-old – who is campaigning to be re-elected in the seat on June 8 – reveals that he was summoned to a meeting at Tory HQ by two officials. There he was told by one that he needed to be ‘really careful’ and to ‘give up’ on trying to win his seat.

The official added: ‘Why do you think you should be supported? Who do you think you are? What have you done with your life?’

Shortly afterwards, Mr Mercer was summoned to a second meeting at Tory HQ in which Sir Lynton Crosby, who is also in charge of the 2017 campaign, told him: ‘You ain’t gonna win, mate.’

Mr Mercer won his seat in 2015 with a majority of just over 1,000 after organising his own campaign, raising funds by working on a building site and appearing topless in a shower gel advert.

He gave a powerful maiden speech in the Commons in which he described the poor care of veterans as ‘a great stain on this nation’.

Although The Mail on Sunday is aware of the identity of the Tory officials – one of whom is a powerful figure in the current Election campaign – we have agreed not to name them.

A spokesman for the Conservatives declined to comment.