Three Tory defectors faced a backlash last night as one of them threatened to destroy the Conservative Party.
Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen yesterday crossed the floor to join eight former Labour MPs in a new group demanding a second Brexit referendum.
The trio announced their bombshell resignations just as Theresa May prepared to enter a critical period that will determine whether she gets her Brexit deal over the line.
Asked if she could envisage returning to the Tories in future, Heidi Allen suggested they wanted to supplant their former party
In an extraordinary press conference, the rebels alleged that the Conservative Party had been taken over from ‘top to toe’ by hard-Right Brexit extremists.
They accused the Prime Minister of a ‘dismal failure’ to stand up to a ‘Purple Momentum’ or ‘Blukip’ movement they said had infiltrated and taken hold of the party. Asked if she could envisage returning to the Tories in future, Mrs Allen suggested they wanted to supplant their former party.
She replied: ‘I can’t imagine it, I just can’t. Not least because, if we do our jobs right, there won’t be a Tory party to go back to.’
The defections were timed for maximum impact, less than an hour before Mrs May appeared in the Commons for Prime Minister’s Questions and just a few hours before she flew to Brussels for the latest round of last-ditch negotiations with the EU.
Last night, the three rebels faced criticism for claiming they were being pushed out by anti-EU ‘entryists’ and the threat of de-selection, when they were choosing to turn their backs on the Tory manifesto they stood on just two years ago, which pledged to honour the result of the Brexit referendum.
Critics also pointed out that their departure had handed a gift to Jeremy Corbyn as he fights his own battle to keep the Labour Party together.
Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen yesterday crossed the floor to join eight former Labour MPs in a new group demanding a second Brexit referendum
Simon Hoare, the Tory MP for North Dorset, said: ‘It’s another distraction from what is the main game in town, which is extricating Britain from the EU with a good deal. Everything else is a sideshow. I am sad at these departures because I believe in a broad church
