Is the Conservative Party now broken beyond repair?

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

The Owen Paterson sleaze scandal could damage the Tories at the next election (Getty Images)

Those Tory MPs who willingly followed Boris Johnson’s instructions to attack democracy will find that, come the next election, “I was only following orders” will not wash. They will have sacrificed everything in the vain hope that they too could climb aboard the gravy train.

How did we get into this state? The rot set in back in September 2019 when 21 decent Tories, including the likes of Dominic Grieve and David Gauke, were subjected to a Stalinist purge for seeing through Johnson’s lies and his crazy belief in “cakeism”. They were joined by others of integrity, like Amber Rudd, who quit the cabinet and resigned the whip.

Now two years on, as cakeism is shown for what it was, a strategy based on lying and cheating that has left Britain’s reputation in tatters, who is going to get the party and the country out of this mess?

Given the lack of judgement demonstrated by Tory MPs in their willingness to believe and accept Johnson’s instructions, they clearly lack the ability to think for themselves and are unlikely to have the integrity or backbone to dethrone him. Likewise, ordinary party members who knowingly voted for power over integrity by backing him are unlikely to do anything. Instead, I can now see the Conservatives endlessly wandering in the wilderness – much like Labour following the damage inflicted by Jeremy Corbyn.

John Simpson

Ross on Wye

Perhaps MPs could act on their own consciences more frequently when voting rather than being “whipped” into herd-like submission.

James Bell

Belgium

Owen Paterson is leaving the “cruel world of politics” from which he had to endure lining his pockets with wedges of extra cash.

Mark Edmondson

Lancaster

The Conservative Party seems to have dug itself into a hole over the Owen Paterson case and covered themselves in sleaze.

The solution is easy and it does not take three months. The Committee on Standards and Privileges should instead be empowered to refer the case and all evidence obtained directly to the Court of Appeal and remove all parliamentary privilege in this regard. This is similar to what happens at the General Medical Council, where on several occasions, the ruling of “guilty” by the GMC has been subsequently overturned and a doctor’s innocence proven by the Court of Appeal.

This would give an accused member of parliament access to full legal justice.

Dr John H Beaven

Somerset

It’s a ‘no’ from me

Aged 60, ex-public school and a former civil servant, I am ashamed at the antics and dishonesty of our jester prime minister. He clearly is only out to put himself and the Tories in an unassailable position.

I and my family and friends did once believe his words. Now, since becoming prime minister it has emerged that Boris Johnson treats the disabled, the poor, the homeless with contempt and a lack of empathy. The sleaze with which he and his cronies conduct their affairs and the lies told to you, me, the general public are deplorable, as is the “one law for MPs and the wealthy and another for everyone else”.

I will not be voting Conservative again and think Johnson and his “gang” of supporting cabinet members should be investigated for public spending disorders and penalised for wasting public money.

Simon Copp

Address supplied

Time for concrete policies on the climate

Agnes Kalibata (‘Indigenous peoples are the best stewards of our environment – the rest of us pale in comparison,’ 5 November) is right that indigenous peoples are the genuine stewards of nature.

We continue to hear heartrending stories of aboriginal people who endure overwhelming cruelty, extreme poverty, discrimination, grievous inequalities, social and economic ostracism. These are all legacies of colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, genocide and ecocide. These people are stripped of their fundamental human rights, depriving mankind of the vast wealth and wisdom of their diverse cultures, traditions and languages.

Time to move beyond lip service and install concrete policies and plans that give voice to downtrodden communities especially regarding the matters that affect them.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London NW2

Yorkshire CCC

I must congratulate the ECB for banning Yorkshire from holding England cricket matches. And I welcome the resignation of the chairman of Yorkshire Cricket, who along with others, should have acted promptly and appropriately some time ago over reported racism at his club.

I find it inexcusable that in the 21st century a usually civilised sport like cricket is administered by people who do not — or have chosen not to — remember the vile racism that tarnished other sports (football springs to mind) in the last century and to a degree still does now.

Let us hope that the ECB and all our cricket clubs take a robust view to ensure nothing like this happens again.

Robert Boston

Kent