LABOUR HELPS THE LIB DEMS CHIP AWAY AT THE SOUTH’S BLUE WALL

SIR Keir Starmer will attempt to aggravate the wideningTory North-South split next week.

The Labour leader has tabled a motion for an opposition day debate in the Commons on Monday critical of government aims for overhauling the planning system.

Labour sources are hopeful that a string of Tory backbenchers in rural and suburban south of England seats will be tempted to rebel and back the motion.

Dozens of Tories including Theresa May and former Cabinet minister Damian Green have broken ranks on the issue recently.

“This is an issue about the threatened erosion of local voices,” said one Labour insider, adding: “A lot ofTory MPs are very uncomfortable about what the Government is proposing.”

Boris Johnson wants a bonfire of planning regulations to help achieve his target of building 300,000 new homes a year.

The Prime Minister wants to make home ownership affordable again for the millions currently shut out of the housing market, particularly in the north of England.

Yet he will need to be wary not to alienate Tory shire county voters worried about overdevelopment and threats to green belts in the party’s southern heartlands.

Thursday’s surprise Lib-Dem triumph in the Chesham and Amersham by-election, where the HS2 rail project and local development plans were issues on the doorsteps, has suddenly exposedTory vulnerability in the South.

Now Labour, bruised by the loss of “Red Wall” northern seats at the last general election, wants to join the Lib Dems in chipping away at the “Blue Wall” south of Watford Gap.

Mr Johnson’s election landslide in 2019 was based on an extraordinary electoral coalition.

But keeping that alliance together is proving a challenge. ManyTories expect another election within two years.

Monday’s vote on planning laws will be an important early skirmish in the new political battle over the ramparts of the BlueWall.