Boris Johnson was struggling to contain an all-out Tory mutiny last night after two major high-speed rail lines were officially axed.
Conservative MPs joined northern leaders in a furious backlash against the long-awaited Integrated Rail Plan, which the PM tried to defend as an ‘ambitious and unparalleled’ overhaul of inter-city links across the North and Midlands.
Mr Johnson was accused of over-selling and under-delivering on his pledge to ‘level up’ the country by his own MPs, some of them in Red Wall seats.
Boris Johnson (pictured on a visit to a Network Rail hub near Selby today) flatly denied that he had broken promises by not going ahead with the lines connecting Leeds
It came after Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the Commons that ministers were scrapping the ‘eastern leg’ of HS2 and downgrading plans for high-speed rail across the North.
Tory chairman of the transport select committee Huw Merriman told the chamber: ‘The PM promised that HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail was not an “either or” option. Those in Leeds and Bradford will be forgiven for viewing it today as neither. This is the danger in selling perpetual sunlight and then leaving it to others to explain the arrival of moonlight.’
Asked whether he had broken promises and thought people in the North were ‘stupid’, Mr Johnson retorted: ‘You are talking total rubbish, because we are doubling capacity between Manchester and Leeds. We’re trebling capacity between Liverpool and Manchester.
‘Of course, there are going to be people who, you know, always want everything at once.
‘And there are lots of people who’ll say, “look, what we should do is carve huge new railways through virgin territory, smashing through unspoilt countryside and villages, and do it all at once”.
‘The problem with that is those extra high-speed lines take decades and they don’t deliver the commuter benefits that I’m talking about. We will eventually do them.’
Robbie Moore, MP for Keighley in West Yorkshire, said he was ‘bitterly disappointed’ at his constituents being ‘completely short-changed’.
A Survation poll carried out between November 11 and 15 found a four-point lead for the Tories had been wiped out over the past month
He added: ‘We are one of the most socially deprived parts of the UK and we must get better transport connectivity. I still want to see Northern Powerhouse Rail delivered...We need to do much, much more. Economic prosperity relies on good transport links.’
Fellow Conservative Kevin Hollinrake, MP for Thirsk and Malton, said the impact of the U-turn would be felt for ‘generations’ and that scaling back high-speed rail in the North was a ‘missed opportunity’ for some cities.
Former minister Sir Edward Leigh, the Tory MP for Gainsborough, said the axing of HS2’s eastern spur meant the project was now ‘a white elephant missing a leg’.
He added: ‘We were promised it would relieve congestion on the east coast mainline because it was
