Brexit hurting Tories, says Heseltine

0 Lord Heseltine: ‘Allow party the time to decide its future’

Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show, the former Deputy Prime Minister said: “If I could advise Mrs May, one great service she could give to the party is to allow the party the time to decide its future.

“But the fact is, if the Tory party doesn’t lance the boil of Brexit then you are opening the doors to a Corbyn premiership.”

The Tory peer was a vocal opponent of the government’s approach to Brexit, and was eventually sacked by Theresa May over his views on her push towards a socalled “hard Brexit”. And he said unless the party changed its tack when it came to Brexit, it would suffer a defeat to Labour in the next year or so.

“We’re going to face a general election anyway. The problem now is that Brexit is the cancer gnawing at the heart of the Conservative Party,” he said.

“There’s a lot of talk about changing the leader – it’s not about changing the leader, it’s about changing the policy. I think there needs to be a period of contemplation, particularly for the parliamentary party, to let them think through who and what will stop Jeremy Corbyn being Prime Minister in a couple of years’ time. It’s as serious as that.”

Lord Heseltine was also pessimistic over Mrs May’s chances to hold an effective government together through an agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party, particularly as negotiations with the EU are due to start in days.

Asked if he was happy with the Conservatives’ moves to team up with the DUP, he said: “I’m closer to Ruth Davidson than I am to [DUP leader] Arlene Foster.””