Pictured are the Tory rebels. (Left to right top row) David Gauke, Alistair Burt, Stephen Hammond, Philip Hammond, Margot James, Ken Clarke and Caroline Nokes. (Left to right middle row) Rory Stewart, Anne Milton, Richard Harrington, Guto Bebb, Antoinette Sandbach, Sam Gyimah and Justine Greening. (Left to right bottom row) Richard Benyon, Steve Brine, Greg Clark, Dominic Grieve, Ed Vaizey , Nicholas Soames and Oliver Letwin
Boris Johnson had set the stakes high, he moved into Downing Street after a humiliating public quarrel with his girlfriend and colleague. He sought and got the Queen’s permission to dismiss the Parliament for five weeks in order to force through a hard Brexit without further delay.
The humiliation yesterday continued as Phillip Lee quietly walked across the chamber to the Lib Dem benches, as Johnson updated the Commons on last month’s G7 summit, a statement devoted mainly to Brexit.
Phillip Lee quits Tories, leaving the government without a majority
This Conservative government is aggressively pursuing a damaging Brexit in unprincipled ways. It is putting lives and livelihoods at risk unnecessarily and it is wantonly endangering the integrity of the United Kingdom. More widely, it is undermining our country’s economy, democracy and role in the world. It is using political manipulation, bullying and lies. And it is doing these things in a deliberate and considered way. Phillip Lee
The prime minister opened the Brexit debate in parliament Tuesday afternoon citing Churchill, his political idol, and pointing to the predecessor’s great democratic significance. Five hours later, he excluded Winston Churchill’s grandson, Nicholas Soames, from the Conservatives’ party group for exercising his democratic right to vote. Sir Nicholas’ crime was that he voted for European cooperation.
Like 20 other Tory politicians, he agreed to a cross-political proposal that the National Assembly on Wednesday should debate and vote on a bill aimed at preventing Britain from crashing out of the EU without any agreement on October 31.
May didn’t and wouldn’t lie quite as extravagantly as the gang who succeeded her. She wouldn’t threaten to break laws she didn’t like or drag her majesty into a party political row. The opposition parties could assume May would keep her word: there was personal trust and integrity.
Sean O’Grady, The Independent
