May’s Tory party ‘destroying itself’
A THIRD of the Cabinet could walk out if Theresa May steers the country towards a no-deal Brexit, former Conservative Sarah Wollaston claimed, amid speculation that more MPs could follow her to the new Independent Group.
Both Labour and the Conservatives are braced for further walkouts as the turbulence at Westminster seems set to continue.
Dr Wollaston claimed the Tory party was “destroying itself ” as Mrs May drifted to the right under pressure from the European Research Group of Brexiteers.
The Health Select Committee chairwoman was one of three Tories who walked out on Wednesday to join eight ex-Labour MPs in the Independent Group (TIG).
“I know that there are many colleagues on my side who will be watching carefully and expecting Theresa May to be certain that she is not going to take us out on a nodeal Brexit,” Dr Wollaston told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“Certainly I think that a third of the Cabinet, I’m pretty clear, would walk if they were looking at a no-deal Brexit.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn urged the TIG MPs to stand down and fight by-elections under their new banner, which he dismissed as “failed politics of the past”.
“It is disappointing that some MPs have left our party to sit with disaffected Tory MPs,” he said in a video message released on social media.
“But we cannot return to the failed business-as-usual politics of the past, and it is only Labour that offers solutions to the challenges people face today.”
Responding to the accusations of defecting MPs such as Luciana Berger that he had failed to tackle anti-Semitism in Labour ranks, Mr Corbyn said he was “utterly determined to root out anti-Semitism from our party and our country”.
Dr Wollaston said she expected more defections “in the coming week” from both Labour and Tories if Mr Corbyn did not commit to a second referendum and Mrs May failed to rule out a no-deal Brexit.
Dr Wollaston also told BBC Breakfast “the Tory party has changed, I think it has changed irredeemably”, adding: “I would say the Tory party is destroying itself.”
The Totnes MP joined the new group alongside former minister Anna Soubry and South Cambridgeshire MP Heidi Allen.
Ms Soubry revealed on Newsnight that former prime minister David Cameron made a last-ditch bid to try to stop the three quitting with a text message: “Is it too late to persuade you to stay?”
The bad news for Mrs May’s party continued yesterday as a Conservative MP was charged with making false claims for parliamentary expenses.
The Crown Prosecution Service said Christopher Davies, the MP for Brecon and Radnor, is accused of two counts of making a false instrument and one of providing false or misleading information in relation to allowance claims.
He will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on March 22.