• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Three pro-EU Conservative MPs defect to independent parliamentary group

EU agency must comply with London lease despite Brexit move, judge rules

Three Europhile MPs on Wednesday resigned from the Conservative party and pledged their allegiance to a new independent parliamentary group aiming to seize the centre ground of British politics.

Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston will work with eight MPs who quit the Labour party on Monday to form the Independent Group.

In a major challenge to Prime Minister Theresa May, the three Europhile MPs said they were leaving the Tory party over its “shift to the right” and Brexit policy.

They added in a letter to Mrs May that the Conservatives were now “in the grip” of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic Tory MPs and the pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist party, which props up the prime minister’s minority government.

“We no longer feel we can remain in the party of a government whose policies and priorities are so firmly in the grip of the European Research Group and Democratic Unionist party,” said the three MPs.

“Brexit has re-defined the Conservative party — undoing all the efforts to modernise it. There has been a dismal failure to stand up to the hard line ERG which operates openly as a party within a party, with its own leader, whip and policy.”

The eight MPs who quit Labour to form the Independent Group — including the former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna — have complained about the leftwing policies of party leader Jeremy Corbyn as well as his stance on Brexit and anti-Semitism.

The Independent Group said in a tweet: “Welcome to the Independent Group @heidiallen75 @Anna_Soubry and @sarahwollaston Both our parties are broken. We are going to #ChangePolitics for the better.”

Ms Wollaston, Ms Soubry and Ms Allen, who supported Remain in the 2016 EU referendum, have had substantial differences with Mrs May over Brexit.

They were among the Conservative MPs who rejected her Brexit deal during the so-called meaningful vote in the House of Commons in January.

They are also supporters of a campaign for a second Brexit referendum called the People’s Vote. Mrs May has repeatedly rejected the case for another plebiscite.

The three MPs said the “final straw” that pushed them to quit had been the government’s “disastrous” handling of the UK’s departure from the EU, and the risk of a no-deal Brexit.

“We find it unconscionable that a party, once trusted on the economy, more than any other, is now recklessly marching the country to the cliff edge of no deal,” they said in the letter.

Mrs May said in response to the three MPs’ resignations: “I am saddened by this decision — these are people who have given dedicated service to our party over many years, and I thank them for it.

“I am determined that under my leadership the Conservative Party will always offer the decent, moderate and patriotic politics that the people of this country deserve,” she added.

As members of the Independent Group, Ms Wollaston, Ms Soubry and Ms Allen will have an opportunity next week to use the latest parliamentary votes on the prime minister’s Brexit plan B to table an amendment calling for a second EU referendum. They have not yet announced whether they will do so.