Tory bloodbath as rebels lose the whip

More than a dozen Tory MPS show support for Brexit delay despite threat of having whip removed

Boris Johnson will strip 21 Conservative MPS of the whip in one of the biggest parliamentary bloodbaths in history. Nine former Cabinet ministers, including Philip Hammond, David Gauke, Rory Stewart, Greg Clark and Kenneth Clarke will lose the Tory whip after rebelling against the Government to try to block a no-deal Brexit. They will sit in the House as independents and the party will block their selection as candidates in the next election.

‘A party which threatens to remove Churchill’s grandson should check its tactics’

‘I have been a member of this party for 45 years. I am going to defend my party against incomers, entryists’

PHILIP HAMMOND has told Boris Johnson that he will face the “fight of a lifetime” if he tries to push him out of the party, as he led Tory rebel attempts to block a no-deal Brexit.

More than a dozen Conservative MPS declared their support for a motion paving the way for legislation to delay Brexit unless Parliament has agreed a new withdrawal agreement by Oct 19, or agrees to a no-deal exit.

The former chancellor led rebel efforts alongside David Gauke and Rory Stewart, both ex-cabinet ministers. And, in a direct challenge to Mr Johnson’s authority, Mr Hammond and Mr Stewart said they intended to stand as Conservative candidates even if they lost the Tory whip over last night’s vote.

Mr Stewart told The Daily Telegraph he expected Downing Street to follow through with its threat to withdraw the whip. “It would be a strategic thing for Dom [Cummings] to do,” he said.

Asked how he would feel if he lost the whip, he said: “Very sad. We are Conservatives and we will try to stand as Conservatives.”

Mr Hammond was reselected as a candidate at a meeting of his local association members on Monday.

Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) still has the power to overrule the reselection, however, by suspending the association itself – as it previously did in 2005 in Slough, when the Slough Conservative Association had refused to deselect Adrian Hilton.

A Tory party source said: “The party has the final say over approved candidates. Sitting MPS have to have the whip to be a Conservative candidate. If they don’t, they wouldn’t be reselected as the Conservative candidate.”

Mr Stewart said: “It puts our associations in a very uncomfortable position.”

Mr Johnson had made it clear he would treat last night’s vote as a vote of confidence in the Government, meaning any Tory MP voting with Labour or abstaining would have the whip withdrawn and would be deselected before the next election.

The Prime Minister repeated the warning when he met Tory rebels in Downing Street yesterday.

Mr Gauke, the former justice secretary who attended the meeting, told The Telegraph: “I have been a member of my party for 29 years, and have never voted against the party’s frontbench position. This is the first time – perhaps the first and last time.”

Government whips spent the day meeting Tory rebels with Mark Spencer, the chief whip, reportedly calling them to say he will remove the party whip from them.

Guto Bebb, who voted to block nodeal, said: “There is no doubt the hardball tactics are worrying some people, especially younger colleagues.”

Mr Hammond, who attended the meeting with the Prime Minister, told The Daily Telegraph that Mr Johnson only strengthened the rebels’ resolve.

“He stiffened the spines of some with the offhand way he was treating them,” he said.

Caroline Nokes, the former immigration minister, told the BBC: “My constituents mean a lot more to me than keeping the Conservative whip.”

Sir Nicholas Soames said: “I will be voting against the Government tonight with a very heavy heart. I don’t doubt Boris wants to get a deal, but I do not believe he has the means to will the end. His demands are unreal and I cannot condone no deal.”

Tobias Ellwood, the former defence minister said: “A party which threatens to remove Churchill’s grandson should check its tactics.”

Justine Greening, the former education secretary, said she would stand down as MP in the next election as she described a no-deal Brexit as the most “profoundly un-conservative policy”.

Meanwhile, Brexiteers hit back at rebels trying to thwart Mr Johnson’s Brexit plans. One minister yesterday described the rebel MPS’ plans as a “collective nervous breakdown”.

Yesterday, Mr Hammond vowed to defend the party. Speaking to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, he said: “A lot of my colleagues have come under immense pressure. Some have responded by saying ‘enough, I’m going’. That is not going to be my approach.

“I have been a member of this party for 45 years. I am going to defend my party against incomers, entryists, who are trying to turn it from a broad church into a narrow faction. People who are at the heart of this Government who are probably not even members of the Conservative Party, who care nothing about the future of the Conservative Party. I intend to defend my party against them.”

The former chancellor said he would resist any move from CCHQ to block his future candidacy.

Mr Hammond said: “The party can withdraw the whip if it chooses to. There’s an entirely separate issue about the selection of candidates for an election. I’ve been readopted as the candidate by my constituency association and all these things have to be done in accordance with party rules.

“I was adopted last night [Monday] as the Conservative candidate for Runnymede and Weybridge for the next election.” Asked if No10 has the power to stop him, Mr Hammond said: “I don’t believe they do and that would be a fight of a lifetime if they tried to.”

Mr Hammond said he could launch a legal challenge if the Government tried to stop him standing as an MP in his constituency.

A source close to the Tory party said stripping Mr Hammond of party membership is another “nuclear option” to block his candidacy in an election.

“If they removed his party membership, then he could not stand as a Tory candidate,” the source said.

Meanwhile, members of Mr Hammond’s association said they were not happy with his readoption.

Richard Knight told LBC radio: “I think it was totally disgraceful that it was in effect a shoo-in and there should’ve been a debate.

“The people I know are really hacked off with him and I’m being polite.”