Ellwood stripped of Tory whip after missing confidence vote
BORIS JOHNSON has stripped his archcritic Tobias Ellwood of the whip after the MP abstained in the confidence vote in the Government.
The Prime Minister survived the vote on Monday night, giving him seven more weeks in Downing Street before his successor takes charge.
Mr Ellwood, the chairman of the defence select committee, missed the vote because he was in Moldova for a meeting with the nation’s president. He is now in Odesa, the port city of Ukraine, which on Monday came under heavy fire from Russian cruise missiles.
A spokeman for the whips’ office said yesterday: “Tobias Ellwood MP has lost the Conservative party whip following his failure to vote in support of the Government in the confidence vote.”
A dozen Conservative MPS did not vote, but the whips’ office confirmed that all of them had been “paired” – meaning they had permission to stay away from Parliament on Monday night – apart from Mr Ellwood.
Mr Ellwood issued a statement saying he was “very sorry” to have lost the whip, meaning he will now have to sit as an independent. He was barred from voting in the final MP rounds of the Tory leadership contest.
He will only be able to vote in the members’ ballot later this summer, once the final two candidates have been selected by MPS.
Mr Ellwood said yesterday: “Following my meeting yesterday with the president of Moldova, I was unable to secure return travel due to unprecedented disruption here and in the UK. I am very sorry to lose the whip but will now continue my meetings in Ukraine promoting the Prime Minister’s efforts here and specifically seeking to secure the reopening of Odesa port – so vital grain exports can recommence.”
Mr Ellwood, a former defence minister, and the Prime Minister have had a long history of clashes. The Bournemouth East MP was one of the first MPS to call for Mr Johnson to resign over partygate and was among those who voted against him last month.
Mr Ellwood has also used his position as defence select committee chairman to take Mr Johnson to task over proposed cuts to the Army of 10,000 personnel.
It was initially thought that Mr Ellwood might stand for the leadership, but instead he threw his support behind Penny Mordaunt.
Yesterday, there was speculation Mr Ellwood would have kept the whip if he had backed Liz Truss, who remains on good terms with the Prime Minister. But Nadine Dorries, the Culture Secretary, rejected the suggestion as “wholly untrue”.
A Tory party source said that Mr Ellwood was warned in advance that the vote was taking place and that his permission to leave Parliament to go to Moldova had been rescinded. “The confidence vote was a vote in support of the delivery of the Conservative government and failure to vote in support is a failure to support the Conservative party agenda, regardless of leader.”
MPS voted by 349 to 238 in favour of the motion, tabled by government as a response to a Labour attempt last week to hold another vote on Mr Johnson.