MP Jake in Twitter attack on Gove
MP Jake Berry has said he stands by furious tweets he made about Conservative party leader candidate Michael Gove – despite later deleting them.
In one angry message the Rossendale MP said “There is a very deep pit reserved in Hell for such as he.
He later deleted the tweet, but then appeared to reinforce his sentiments that same night with a follow up post in which he compared Mr Gove to ‘Judas Iscariot’.
Mr Berry tweeted: “I do not for one moment resile from my opinion that as a traitor Gove leaves Judas Iscariot standing.”
It comes after Mr Gove was accused of betraying former ally Boris Johnson by announcing he was to stand for the party leadership, scuppering his rival’s bid to land the role.
Mr Berry had been tipped for a key role under the former London mayor after being invited for lunch at his country retreat in Oxfordshire last weekend and saying he backed him for the top job.
He told the Free Press that the tweets reflected his “anger” at the ‘betrayal’.
He said: “I was angry, I had put a lot of work in. Anyone who has ever worked really hard on something, to have it taken away and sabotaged in such a way will know that emotions run high at such times.
“It accurately reflected the way I felt at that time. I think I made my point, I just decided that things said in anger are often best deleted. I stand by what I said, Boris was treated in a duplicitous and unfair way by Mr Gove.
“It’s up to him to answer for his own betrayal, a betrayal that was worthy of Game of Thrones or House of Cards.”
The official candidates for the leadership are justice secretary Michael Gove, energy and climate change minister Andrea Leadsom and home secretary Theresa May.
Welsh secretary Stephen Crabb and former defence secretary Liam Fox were also in the race but Fox was eliminated and Crabb withdrew after the first round of voting on Tuesday. Last Wednesday Mr Berry told the Free Press: “I think Boris has a decisive mandate from the referendum. He asked me if I would have lunch with him and I agreed and following a conversation about what we want in Rossendale and Darwen I said I would back him.”