‘Blukip’ fear Tories said to be on brink of jumping ship to join Labour revolt
A HANDFUL of Tory backbenchers were last night said to be on the brink of defecting to the new Independent Group set up by disgruntled Labour MPs.
MPs Sarah Wollaston, Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen were the subject of rumours they could jump ship.
But former minister Nick Boles yesterday rubbished suggestions he would defect – after appearing to leave the question open earlier in the week.
So far no Conservative MP has gone public with support for the new Independent Group of seven former Labour MPs.
But Remainer Ms Wollaston has campaigned for a People’s Vote alongside Chuka Umunna and Luciana Berger, both of whom had quit the Labour Party on Monday.
Ms Wollaston reiterated her dismay with her party yesterday when she again tweeted a message describing its lurch to the Right: “#BLUKIP has been busy taking over the Tory Party alongside the ERG. Soon there will be nothing left at all to appeal to moderate centre-ground voters.”
Furious
One Brexit-backing Tory MP said: “It would not surprise me at all if Soubry or Wollaston jumped ship. They don’t seem very happy being Conservatives.”
A minister added: “I’ve no idea whether any Tories will join the new group but I hope not – we need to be a broad church.”
Last night, former Tory prime minister Sir John Major launched a furious broadside at the party’s Eurosceptics, branding them “zealots”. The staunch Brexit opponent singled out Jacob Rees-Mogg’s backbench European Research Group (ERG) for an attack.
In a speech in Glasgow, he said: “In Parliament, the European Research Group has become a party within a party, with its own whips, its own funding and its own priorities. Some of its more extreme members have little or no affinity to moderate, pragmatic and tolerant Conservatism.
“The ERG does not represent a majority view but – with a minority Government, as now – can determine policy simply by being intransigent: which is precisely what it is doing. Some – who can fairly be called zealots –
seem incapable of looking beyond the one issue of Europe. It’s not just that it dominates their thinking – it seems to obsess them.”
Hitting out at alleged hardliners in both mainstream parties, he added: “Currently, both the Conservative and Labour parties are being manipulated by fringe opinion.
“The rationale for extremists joining mainstream parties is logical: From within
them, they can influence policy; from without, they very rarely can.
“There are people who, for now, may have their boots within the Conservative or Labour parties – but not in their minds, nor their hearts.
“The Conservative Party membership appears to be ‘hollowing out’ traditional Conservatives, while former Ukip members strengthen the anti-European Right of the party.”