Tory MPS challenge hard-line Brexiteers
Each day spent wrangling is a day lost setting out future vision for the country, warns policy head
A bloc of 50 Conservative MPS are setting themselves up to challenge the hard-line Eurosceptic Research Group on Brexit. The Brexit Delivery Group will meet weekly when Parliament returns next month “to find a pragmatic Brexit outcome”. There are suggestions that the Tories face electoral jeopardy over their handling of Brexit, as a Comres survey of voters in constituencies that backed Leave found support for a “clean Brexit” political party to “finish the job”.
TORY battle lines are being drawn ahead of an autumn that could split the party, with a new bloc of 50 Conservative MPS being set up to challenge the hardline Eurosceptic Research Group.
The new Brexit Delivery Group – led by MPS Simon Hart and Andrew Percy – will meet weekly when Parliament returns next month “to find a pragmatic Brexit outcome”.
Chris Skidmore, the party’s head of policy, has urged it to unite, warning of “the risk of the Conservative Party becoming self-defined as simply the Brexit party, without a clear domestic policy offer for the country”.
Mr Skidmore, who has been charged with finding 1,000 ideas to invigorate Tory thinking, wrote in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph that the party risked “becoming ever more consumed by process instead of outcomes”.
He added: “Each day spent talking about Brexit is a day lost spent setting out our future vision for the NHS, schools, transport, and law and order.”
However, there were suggestions that the Tories faced electoral jeopardy over their handling of Brexit, as a Comres survey of 10,000 voters in constituencies that backed Leave found the majority backing a “clean Brexit” political party to “finish the job properly”.
The survey in Leave-backing Labour constituencies found 52 per cent would consider backing a political party with “a single aim of putting pressure on the main parties to conclude Brexit as quickly and fully as possible”.
Jeremy Hosking, a City financier and party donor who funded the research, said the polling showed voters were “disappointed by the response of the main parties to what was a clear democratic instruction” to leave the EU.
Conservative and Labour MPS are bracing themselves for a tumultuous autumn when Parliament will be asked to approve the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal. The Treasury has had to play down rumours that Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, was considering bringing forward the Budget to next month.
The new Brexit Delivery Group comprises moderate Conservatives who want to ensure Britain leaves the EU in March. Members from both Leave and Remain wings of the party include Charles Walker, David TC Davies, Nick Boles and Tom Tugendhat.
In a letter inviting Tory MPS to join, Mr Hart and Mr Percy said Leavers and Remainers were united on the need to honour the outcome of the referendum. “What we seek to do is recognise that there is a significant number of voters, businesses and elected colleagues who feel that the debate is being dominated by the loudest voices
‘Voters, businesses and elected colleagues feel the debate is being dominated by the loudest voices’
that ‘bookend’ the pragmatic middle ground – in other words the ‘status quo’ versus ‘leave at all costs’,” it said.
The letter added: “Our group does not seek to compete with or outgun other groups or to trap the Government. It is simply an opportunity for colleagues who think we can devise pragmatic proposals to have a voice.
“As Brexit is a process, not an event, we need to produce an agreement that stands the best chance of getting through Parliament.
“However, we are worried that this outcome could be put at risk by those who, perfectly honourably, seek the purity of perfection. In politics ‘perfection’ does not exist, it is the siren song calling us on to the rocks.”
British negotiators and EU counterparts will hold “technical talks” on Aug 17 and 18 to find agreement on the Irish border, which Brussels warned was now a matter of “absolute urgency”.
It is understood that Michel Barnier, the EU’S chief negotiator, and Dominic Raab, the UK Brexit Secretary, will not attend but are expected to make a joint statement the following week.