Brexit: Boris Johnson accused of ‘serial disloyalty’ by Tory grandee kicked out of party

Sir Nicholas Soames is one of 21 MPs stripped of the Conservative whip after rebelling against the PM over Brexit

A Conservative grandee kicked out of the party for voting against Boris Johnson on Tuesday has accused the prime minister and members of his cabinet of “serial disloyalty”.

Former defence minister Sir Nicholas Soames – who is the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill and has represented the Conservatives in the House of Commons for 36 years – was one of 21 MPs stripped of the Tory whip after rebelling against the prime minister.

The move, which means the rebels cannot stand for Conservatives at the next election, sparked incredulity in some quarters of the party.

Hailing the Mid Sussex MP as “an officer and a gentleman”, former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson asked on Twitter: “How, in the name of all that is good and holy, is there no longer room in the Conservative Party for Nicholas Soames?”

Others stripped of the Tory whip for backing a motion to hand MPs control of the Commons timetable in order to pass a bill blocking a no-deal Brexit included former chancellors Kenneth Clarke and Philip Hammond as well as David Gauke, Rory Stewart and Greg Clark, who were all in Theresa May’s cabinet only weeks ago.

A snap YouGov poll found that 45 per cent of voters viewed Mr Johnson’s decision to expel the MPs as “undemocratic”, against 32 per cent who said it was not.

The same survey of 1,533 voters found that the PM’s decision to suspend parliament for five weeks was seen as undemocratic by a margin of 46 per cent to 32 per cent.

And just 21 per cent said that the general election which Mr Johnson is seeking is the best way to resolve the Brexit crisis.

Sir Nicholas was cheered as he rose to back the anti-no deal bill in the Commons.

And there was loud laughter as he told MPs: “I have always believed that the referendum result must be honoured, and indeed I voted for the withdrawal agreement on every occasion it has been presented to the House, which is more than can be said for my right honourable friend the prime minister, the leader of the House and other members of the cabinet, whose serial disloyalty has been such an inspiration to so many of us.”

Mr Johnson and Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg each voted twice against the withdrawal agreement obtained by Ms May, in a series of dramatic defeats which forced the extension of Brexit negotiations.

The UK’s leader of the House of Commons relaxing on the front benches (Getty)

A Downing Street source insisted that the removal of the whip was “inevitable” after the 21 MPs failed to support Mr Johnson in Tuesday’s vote. And he said that Tories who rebel during the passage of the bill through parliament could expect the same treatment.

“The prime minister obviously respects that there is a number of hardworking colleagues who have been with the party for a very long time,” said the source.

“But the chief whip had very clear conversations with people telling them that if you vote for a mechanism that takes power from the government and gives it to the opposition, this would be a matter of confidence. That was repeated to them and they took their decision.”

But former party chairman Kenneth Baker called for the 21 – now sitting in the Commons as independents – to be allowed to stand again for the Conservatives at the next election.

“These 21 MPs are not parvenus seeking to infiltrate the party, they are lifelong Tories in their mind and in their bones,” said Lord Baker.

He warned the party owes its success to being a broad church which had kept policy decisions out of the hands of “swivel-eyed ideologues”.

Mr Stewart, who was a candidate in the recent Tory leadership race, said he was told about the decision to withdraw the whip by text message.

He confirmed he still hopes to stand as a Tory candidate at the next election, and said the decision to bar him and other rebels was “not a Conservative way of behaving”.

“I’ve not lost my party, I’ve just been temporarily suspended,” said the former international development secretary.

“I would like to stand as a Conservative for the Conservative Party and I have full confidence that the government will eventually realise that this is no way to treat a party because in the end we have to bring the country together. This has to be about compromise.

“One of the strongest reasons why this is the wrong thing to do is because to deliver Brexit like this is to create a poison pill which for 40 years will divide this country straight down the middle.

“If you are going to deliver Brexit at all, try to do it legally, constitutionally and with consent.”

The president of Penrith and the Border Conservatives, Robert Craig, said he would be “stunned” if members did not select Mr Stewart to continue as their candidate.

“If we decide, as I would expect we will, to back Rory, I think CCHQ are basically going to have to dissolve us,” Mr Craig told the Press Association.

“It would be tragic to lose someone of Rory’s intellect and standing from politics at exactly the wrong time.”

Rory Stewart (EPA)

But business minister Kwasi Kwarteng said: “On this central issue, on this key question of Brexit, he chose to vote against the government and chose essentially to give control of the order paper to the opposition.

“It was very clearly stated that Conservative MPs would lose the whip. Now 21 of them out of 312 – that is about 6 per cent – chose to vote against the government and they had the whip withdrawn. That was very clear.”

He added: “I think it is a shame – a lot of them are very talented people. But you cannot have people standing as Conservative MPs when they are against the Government’s policy on the key issue of the day.”

Local Conservative associations in the constituencies of Sir Oliver Letwin, Dominic Grieve, Guto Bebb and Margot James indicated that they would be seeking new candidates.

Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary, said Mr Johnson and his chief of staff Dominic Cummings were “destroying” their own party.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “To be honest, removing the whip from well-regarded Tory MPs that have served their party for years amounts to Johnson and Cummings destroying their own party. That will not end well.”

Reacting to the treatment of Sir Nicholas, European parliament Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt tweeted: “Sir Winston Churchill was a founding father of the European Union, convinced that only a united Europe could guarantee peace. He would surely be stunned about the state of today’s Conservative Party.”