Soubry savages Rees-Mogg and his paternal skills
TORY rebel Anna Soubry was under fire last night after launching a bitter personal attack on Jacob Rees-Mogg.
The former minister, who was sacked by Theresa May, called for pro-Brexit Tory MPs to be ‘slung out’ of the party.
She suggested Remainers could quit the party if Boris Johnson or Mr Rees-Mogg, chairman of the european Research Group of eurosceptic Tory MPs, became leader.
‘Somebody like Jacob, with his views on things like abortion, a man who says he’s had six children and never changed a nappy … I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stay in a party led by somebody like him,’ she told ITv’s Good Morning Britain.
‘I’m really cheesed off about the way the whole Brexit thing is going. It feels like – and I think there’s evidence to support this – Theresa is in hock to these 35 hard Brexiteers. They don’t represent my party, but more importantly they don’t represent people who voted Leave.’
Miss Soubry was one of 11 pro-Remain Tory MPs who joined forces with Labour last year to inflict a Commons defeat on the Government over the eU Withdrawal Bill. After last year’s election, she suggested Mrs May should resign, saying it was time for her to ‘consider her position’.
A Whitehall source said: ‘A lot of people will find it pretty ironic to discover Anna Soubry is delivering lectures on loyalty.’
Former education secretary Justine Greening said she shared Miss Soubry’s ‘frustration’ that a pro-Brexit ‘cabal’ was forming in government. Asked whether she would stay in the party if Mr ReesMogg became leader, she added: ‘That might be a bit of a stretch.’ Mr Rees-Mogg declined to comment, but a friend said he ‘thinks highly’ of Miss Soubry and ‘thinks she is entitled to her view on Brexit’.
Former Tory chancellor Lord Lamont described Miss Soubry’s remarks as ‘ridiculous’, adding: ‘I don’t want to be rude about Anna Soubry, but I think she does
sometimes tend to go over the top.’ Pro-Brexit Tory Will Quince said: ‘We do not “sling people out” just because they hold a different view – that would make us no better than the current Labour Party.’
Miss Soubry told the BBC’s Newsnight: ‘If it comes to it, I am not going to stay in a party which has been taken over by the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson. They are not proper Conservatives … Unless Theresa stands up and sees off these people she is in real danger of losing huge swathes of [the party].’
She said of hard-line Brexiteers: ‘They are not the Tory Party I joined … it is about time Theresa stood up to them and slung ‘em out.’ Mrs May’s official spokesman said: ‘I think the Prime Minister has been clear on Brexit. She is working to get the best possible deal on behalf of everyone in the UK.’
THE BBC sacked a radio gardening expert after he suggested pro-Brexit MP Zac Goldsmith should receive death threats. After the Tory MP tweeted a photo of a death threat sent to a constituent, Labour supporter St John Stephen, who has a slot on BBC Radio London, replied: ‘It should have been addressed to you.’ He later apologised, but BBC sources said he would not be allowed back on air. A spokesman added: ‘This was clearly unacceptable.’
WAS Anna Soubry listening when Mrs May, in that same speech, lamented the ‘coarsening and toxifying’ of political debate by personal abuse and rancour?
The Mail asks because, even by her own standards, self-appointed Remainer-inchief Miss Soubry hit a new peak of hysteria when she said Brexiteer Tories such as Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg should be ‘slung out’ of the party.
Not only did she suggest Tories who disagree with her extreme pro-European views are ‘ not proper Conservatives’ ( thereby dismissing scores of her colleagues, not to mention the Brexitsupporting majority of her constituents).
She went on to launch a vicious tirade against father- of- six Mr Rees- Mogg, attacking his Catholic views on abortion and his admission he has never changed a nappy. ‘I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stay in a party led by somebody like him,’ she said.
Was this a threat or a promise by this ‘proper Conservative’ (who flirted with joining the SDP in the 1980s)?
As Miss Soubry once said herself: ‘ If people are going to get dirty and personal they would be better just shutting up.’
We urge her to take her own advice.