Nick Boles: Ex-Tory MP launches scathing attack on Theresa May's 'cowardly and selfish' cabinet

'They have all put themselves first, they have all been cowardly when they should have been brave, they have been selfish when they should have been cooperative'

Ex-Conservative MP Nick Boles has launched a scathing attack on Theresa May's "cowardly" and "selfish" cabinet, as he described the prime minister's top team as the worst in recorded history.

Less than 24 hours after dramatically quitting the party during a series of votes in the Commons, Mr Boles said Ms May had "misunderstood and mismanaged" the Brexit process.

Speaking to the BBC, the Grantham and Stamford MP said: "There are some fine people in the cabinet, genuinely, people who would have been in a cabinet in any age, but this is the worst cabinet collectively not only in my lifetime but I think probably in recorded history."

He added that Ms May's successor as prime minister "should not be anyone who is or has been in the cabinet" since 2017.

"None of them in my view has earned the right to lead the country after Brexit - they are all compromised by their collective failure to lead, to unite, to get behind one plan, to sell that plan, to communicate," Mr Boles continued.

"They have all put themselves first, they have all been cowardly when they should have been brave, they have been selfish when they should have been cooperative. None of them should be prime minister after Brexit."

Explaining is decision to resign from the party, he said: "I found myself there, looking around the House of Commons, seeing that the party that was least willing to compromise... was my own. I guess that was when it snapped."

The highly-critical remarks came after Mr Boles' Norway-style Brexit proposal was rejected during a second round of indicative votes on Monday evening in the Commons.

"This House has continuously rejected leaving without a deal, just as it has rejected not leaving at all," he told MPs. "Therefore the only option is to find a way through which allows the UK to leave with a deal. The government continues to believe that the best course to take is to do so as soon as possible."