TARZAN COMES OUT SWINGING
Lord Heseltine insists he will never quit Tories despite calls for him to be kicked out because he prefers Corbyn to Brexit
The former deputy PM says the damage caused by Corbyn would be easier to fix than Brexit
EURO-FANATIC Michael Heseltine today vowed that he will never quit the Tories despite prompting fury by suggesting Jeremy Corbyn is better than Brexit.
Theresa May has faced calls to kick the party grandee out of the Tories for good after he hinted he could vote for the leftie Labour boss if it kept Britain inside the EU.
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But this morning he doubled down on his comments - claiming it will take decades to “clear up the mess that Brexit creates”.
The former deputy PM refused to take back his original remarks and insisted that he is closer to the Tory mainstream than Brexiteers despite his strong pro-EU views.
Lord Heseltine told Good Morning Britain: “What I said is that I noticed a number of my friends who are saying to me that given the awful choice between a Corbyn government and Brexit, the reason they are thinking of voting for Corbyn is that that’s a short-term pain.
“The Tories will come back, they’ll clear up the mess. Brexit is a long-term disaster.
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“And that’s why Conservative voters that I know are saying to me that they may be forced into this decision - it’s an awful decision, but there are a lot of them.
“You can’t clear up the mess that Brexit creates, except perhaps in a generation's time.”
He rejected claims he is being disloyal to his party - saying it was “urgent” for senior Tories to oppose the Government’s Brexit strategy.
And asked what he’d do if Mrs May withdrew the whip from him in the House of Lords, the veteran said: “I would be immensely disappointed but it wouldn’t make any difference, I’d go on arguing as a Conservative.
“There’s no question of me abandoning the Conservative party - they may abandon me.”
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Lord Heseltine, nicknamed Tarzan, sparked a massive backlash earlier this week after he told a podcast he was more worried about Brexit than about Mr Corbyn’s hard-left agenda.
His ex-colleague Norman Tebbit said: “I think it is unprecedented for a man in receipt of the Conservative whip to suggest that a Corbyn government would be preferable to a British government governing the UK, given that the alternative he is advocating is Brussels.
"It must call into question whether his loyalty is to the UK or a foreign power."
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