Hammond: I won’t be forced out by usurpers in my party

PHILIP HAMMOND has vowed to resist being pushed out of the Conservative Party by “unelected advisers” and “usurpers” he claims “care not one jot” about the future of the Tories.

In an article for his local newspaper, the Runnymede and Weybridge MP and former chancellor revealed that he was consulting lawyers on the legality of Boris Johnson’s decision to withdraw the whip from him and 20 other colleagues who rebelled against the Government last week.

He has also written to Mark Spencer, the Chief Whip, demanding a formal explanation of the move and the procedures for challenging it.

It came as Penny Mordaunt, who was defence secretary under Theresa May, said the 21 MPs ousted by Mr Spencer must be allowed to stand for the Conservatives at the next election, “if they accept the platform and manifesto”.

Ms Mordaunt, 46, also described an incident at a 1996 Tory conference fundraiser in which, “one man had said to another … that if he gave the party a particular donation, he could take Penny home that night and do what he liked with me. It was awful”.

Mr Hammond, 63, and the 20 other MPs, were ousted from the party for backing measures allowing opponents of a no-deal Brexit to take control of the Commons agenda. If Mr Spencer refuses to reverse his decision, an appeal will be heard by a party panel.

Writing in The Surrey Advertiser, in an apparent swipe at Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s most senior aide, Mr Hammond said: “This is my party. I am not going to be pushed out of it by unelected Downing Street advisers who are not Conservatives and care not one jot whether the party has a future. Nor will I have my party taken from me by entryists and usurpers who have infiltrated the party in an attempt to turn it from a centre-Right broad church into an extreme Right-wing faction.”

Diana Johnson is understood to have become the first Labour MP to face deselection under new watered-down party rules.

The Hull North MP and former minister has told colleagues that she faces a battle for her future after the threshold for a selection contest was apparently triggered at a meeting of her constituency Labour Party yesterday.