Defected Tory MPs’ claim the party has been ‘captured’ by far-right is baseless
Tory turncoats
IN some parallel universe the Tory party may have been “captured” by the hard right, as the three turncoats alleged yesterday. It sure as hell hasn’t in this one.
So forget their paranoid and baseless fantasies about Ukip infiltrators. Or about the Tories, under their most left-wing leader in a generation, in fact being ruled by compassionless brutes.
It’s window dressing aimed at disguising their sole obsession, a catastrophically divisive second Brexit referendum.
Perhaps they need to justify it to themselves. Because Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen backed the 2016 referendum, vowed to respect the result, voted for Article 50, then stood for election promising Brexit in full: no single market, no customs union.
They now consider it “extreme” to keep those promises instead of breaking them. Ex-colleagues honouring the referendum and manifesto are “anti-EU zealots”.
Wollaston and Soubry represent Leave constituencies. Wollaston even campaigned for Leave initially. How can these hypocrites deny their duped constituents immediate by-elections and a “final say” on their duplicity?
At least, though, we now know the new Independent Group’s only policy: to reverse Brexit. The Labour MPs mainly quit Corbyn’s party over its vile anti-Semitism and economic insanity. The Tories’ recruitment shifts the entire focus.
OLD REMOANER CLAPTRAP
Their anti-Brexit arguments, though, are the same old Remoaner claptrap.
Soubry even trotted out the feeblest of all, counting non-voters to claim 63 per cent of us did not back Brexit: A child’s logic, applying to every election ever.
Allen claimed they heard the “clarion call for change” from 17.4million Leave voters. They intend to ignore them.
They said “compassionate Conservatism” had been sidelined, airbrushing out their own role as serial rebels helping to paralyse Theresa May’s Government.
But now they hope she will dump the DUP and make a pact with them in exchange for their “people’s vote”. She could, if she wished to destroy her party.
The Tories rightly aim to be a “broad church”. But these three shameless defectors, puffed up on sanctimony and epic self-regard, were irreconcilable.
They have betrayed their party and their voters. And they’re not done yet.
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Brexit in peril
NEXT week backbench MPs could snatch power from the Government over Brexit in one of the most recklessly insane acts Parliament has seen.
A Labour-backed vote, joined by Tory Remainers, would “take No Deal off the table” and effectively end the PM’s negotiations. The fact this is the brainchild of Oliver “Poll Tax” Letwin should tell you what chaos it will unleash.
Which is doubtless why the EU is going cold on compromising. Why should it, if Remainers will postpone Brexit?
Tory Leave MPs must not assume this will fail. Brexit is in mortal danger.