MP: ‘Dysfunctional’ No10 didn’t care

The Conservative Party has become “dysfunctional” and uncaring, one of the MPS that walked out yesterday claimed.

Heidi Allen said it was “absolutely staggering” that no-one from Number 10 or the government whips’ office had been in touch with her in the days before her resignation to try and prevent it.

“This is physical evidence of how dysfunctional the party has become,” Ms Allen said.

“That we’re not protected from the bottom up in terms of entryism or yellow jackets yelling at us on the street.

“And we’re not protected from the top down.

“The organisation is dysfunctional, it’s not a team any more. It doesn’t wrap itself around us.”

However, Ms Allen said individual MPS had treated the defectors warmly, claiming they “waved and winked” and had “blown kisses”.

Moments before Prime Minister’s Questions, the three ex-conservative MPS walked into the Commons chamber together and were warmly greeted by their former Labour colleagues in the Independent Group. They also spoke at length with SNP MPS, who were seated one row in front.

Meanwhile, thousands of donors have responded to a plea for funding for the new Independent Group, one of its MPS said.

Chris Leslie, who quit Labour to form the new group on Monday, insisted it would be transparent about the source of its funding.

The ex-labour frontbencher said there had been a good response to a crowdfunding campaign but called for more donors to come forward. “We have had thousands of people giving small sums and some wanting to give larger sums,” he said.

“The Electoral Commission have rules for political parties. While we are not a political party yet, we have set out to say we will map over the rules on parties as though we were a political party and comply with the full disclosures of that.”

He added: “I don’t know who is going to want to support and give money, but we will need it. We don’t have the infrastructure, we need to tool up pretty quickly.”