The rebels defying voters
Sacked ministers. An MP who repaid £25,000 of expenses. Others with thwarted ambitions. Andrew Pierce on the Tories plotting to vote against May on Brexit – even though their own constituents voted Leave
1 ANNA SOUBRY
Leave vote in Broxtowe constituency: 50.3 per cent Rebels have tabled 19 amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill, many of which are aimed at frustrating the Brexit process.
Miss Soubry backed all of them. One of David Cameron’s most outspoken ministers, she was sacked by Theresa May in her first reshuffle in July last year.
Soubry, 60, went after rejecting the role of deputy to newly promoted Justice Secretary Liz Truss, telling friends it was an ‘insult’ given her seniority in age and background as a barrister.
At a pro EU rally, after the referendum, Soubry struggled to hold back tears as she talked about the ‘terrible mistake’ of leaving the EU. (Fellow Tory MP Nadine Dorries accused her of ‘being inebriated’.)
Soubry consistently lives up to her reputation as a rent-a-quote, describing Brexit as a ‘self-inflicted wound’. She says: ‘The people, not the hardline Brexiteers, are in charge.’ Quite. So why is she riding roughshod over the 17.4million people who voted for Brexit?
2 SARAH WOLLASTON
Leave vote in Totnes constituency: 54.1 per cent The former GP backed all 19 rebel amendments. Dr Wollaston, 55, was a high profile recruit to the Leave campaign, but switched sides over the claim the NHS would benefit to the tune of £350million a week. Many Tory MPs claimed the change of opinion was ‘deliberately staged and political’. Wollaston, a serial rebel who is chairman of the Commons health select committee said at the time: ‘The consensus now is there would be a huge economic shock if we voted to leave.’ Given there’s been no economic shock, why is she still a Remainer?
3 JEREMY LEFROY
Leave vote in Stafford constituency: 57.2 per cent Mr Lefroy, a member of the Brexit select committee, backed all rebel amendments. In March, an open letter co-authored by him declared there was ‘no covert plot by Tory MPs to keep us in the EU’.
Lefroy, 58, has made little impact in seven years in parliament and has been consistently overlooked for ministerial office. (‘He’s gained some prominence at last,’ sniped one Leave Tory MP yesterday.) Lefroy rejects the idea he’s trying to scupper Brexit, insisting his scrutiny of the bill is ‘looking after the interests of my constituents.’ As the majority voted to Leave, he appears to be looking after the minority not the majority.
4 NICKY MORGAN
Leave vote in Loughborough constituency: 50.3 per cent Miss Morgan, who backed all rebel amendments, has long nursed a grudge against the PM after she was sacked as Education Secretary in her first reshuffle.
The Oxford- educated solicitor has such an over inflated view of her own self-importance that she even toyed with the idea of running for the party leadership after Mr Cameron quit.
Last year she declared that ‘One of the golden rules of politics is that if your opponent is attacking you personally, then they are rattled.’ And which politician was it who took a personal swipe at May after she was photographed for a magazine wearing a £995 pair of leather trousers which ‘were the height of political vulgarity?’
The same Nicky Morgan who was later photographed with a £950 Mulberry handbag.
Describing the Prime Minister as ‘tin eared and tone deaf’, Morgan says Mrs May is ‘guaranteed to continue to deepen divisions in the Conservative party rather than trying to heal them, which is what she should be doing’.’
Isn’t it the 15 rebels – of which she is one of the most senior – who have sparked the divisions, rather the Prime Minister?
5 ANTOINETTE SANDBACH
Leave vote in Eddisbury constituency: 52.2 per cent A FORMER member of the Welsh assembly, Sandbach, a barrister, backed all the rebel amendments.
She was barely known until the day she broke down in tears in the Commons chamber when she movingly revealed how she had lost her son Sam to sudden infant death syndrome. Sandbach, 48, is unrepentant on her position on the EU. She says: “The role of MPs is not to be lobby fodder but to scrutinise legislation. I don’t support Hard Brexit and never will not least because I don’t believe the Hard Brexiteers speak for the nation.’
She’s clearly not speaking for her constituency either..
6 VICKY FORD
Leave vote in Chelmsford constituency: 50.5 per cent Elected in June 20, Ford was immediately embroiled in uproar by backing moves to allow inmates at Chelmsford prison access to social media and mobile telephones.
A former banker with JP Morgan, the Cambridge- educated Ford, who backed four rebel amendments, spent a decade in Brussels as an MEP. Now 50, she was criticised for going on a four day publicly funded junket to Croatia shortly after the 2014 European elections in which she had campaigned against wasteful spending. She says: ‘ The country decided. Now we need to make it work.’ Hard to see how she will do that by collaborating with the Labour Party.
7 TOM TUGENDHAT
Leave vote in Tonbridge and Malling constituency: 52.6 per cent Often tipped as a future party leader, Tugendhat, 44, backed four amendments. He was elected chairman of the foreign affairs select committee this summer after only two years in Parliament. A passion for Brussels runs in his family. His uncle Christopher Tugendhat was an EU commissioner.
He served a decade with the Territorial Army, which included active service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Denying he’s trying to block Brexit, Tugendhat says: ‘I am concerned that fixing a precise time for our departure will give the EU control over the timetable and allow them to restrict our freedom of manoeuvre.’
Once Article 50 is triggered, there is a two-year period to complete negotiations. If negotiations do not result in a ratified agreement, Britain leaves without a deal; which is the opposite of what he wants.
8 JONATHAN DJANOGLY
Leave vote in Huntingdon constituency: 55.3 per cent Elected in 2001, Djanogly, who will vote against setting a leave date in law, has struggled to make an impression. In the 2009 expenses scandal, he was heavily criticised after hiring private detectives to
look into his aides and colleagues whom he suspected of leaking information about his own claims. In the event, he repaid voluntarily £25,000. He rejects the charge of being a mutineer, insisting that he is a ‘scrutineer’. He says: ‘ For clarity: to me this is about upholding our constitution and negotiation position – not remaining.’ Surely, it’s the PM who is doing the negotiating not Djanogly, and by voting against her he will weaken her position.
9 SIR OLIVER HEALD
Leave vote in North East Hertfordshire constituency: 51.4 per cent A veteran of John Major’s government, he was an architect of a Tory rebellion on a Coalition plan to reform the House of Lords in 2012. But Heald, despite making loud noises, never actually voted against the measure. A barrister, he was rewarded for not voting against the government by being made Solicitor General in 2012.
However, he was sacked after two years and given a knighthood as a sop.
Brought back into the government last summer as junior justice minister, Heald, who employs his wife Christine in his Parliamentary office,
His stance has surprised some Tories, with one saying: ‘Who knew Oliver had such strong views on the EU.’
Heald hasn’t actually raised the subject of the EU in the Commons chamber for months, and he’s the only one of the 15 rebels who failed to comment yesterday, confirming the view of some of his colleagues that his role in the revolt was purely opportunistic ‘scrutineer.
He says: ‘For clarity: to me this is about upholding our constitution and negotiation position – not remaining.’
Surely, it’s the PM who is doing the negotiating not Djanogly, and by voting against her he will weaken her position.