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| Tory MPs react with fury to talk of no-deal Brexit manifesto promise | Tory MPs react with fury to talk of no-deal Brexit manifesto promise |
| (30 minutes later) | |
| Conservative MPs have launched a furious backlash against a mooted general election manifesto that pushes explicitly for a no-deal Brexit, with some threatening to quit. | Conservative MPs have launched a furious backlash against a mooted general election manifesto that pushes explicitly for a no-deal Brexit, with some threatening to quit. |
| Boris Johnson’s chief whip, Mark Spencer, and his parliamentary private secretary, James Heappey, have received a series of complaints in the past 24 hours from backbench MPs who say they cannot stand on a no-deal platform, after a Downing Street memo was sent out. | Boris Johnson’s chief whip, Mark Spencer, and his parliamentary private secretary, James Heappey, have received a series of complaints in the past 24 hours from backbench MPs who say they cannot stand on a no-deal platform, after a Downing Street memo was sent out. |
| Concern around how Boris Johnson might want to fight a general election was heightened after a No 10 source wrote in a memo to the Spectator: “To marginalise the Brexit party, we will have to fight the election on the basis of ‘no more delays, get Brexit done immediately’.” | |
| The note, which is widely believed to have been sent by Johnson’s chief strategist, Dominic Cummings, has been interpreted as No 10 gearing up to try and outflank the Brexit party leader, Nigel Farage, by going to the public with a no-deal offer at the polls. | |
| The home secretary, Priti Patel, repeated the government’s commitment to leave the EU on 31 October “come what may”. | |
| Expectations that up to 50 Tories would choose not stand for their party at the next election in protest, could be an under-estimate, according to one source. They said the group of 100-plus One Nation Tories were all extremely worried about the government’s potential direction. | |
| The former cabinet minister Damian Green is meeting the prime minister on Wednesday to tell him that many MPs cannot support a no-deal manifesto. | |
| One backbencher said: “It’s pretty much the only conversation taking place on the backbenches at the moment and it’s going down very poorly. “The whole One Nation group would struggle with it. I do not see that there’s a democratic mandate based on a 52-48 referendum result for a no-deal Brexit. | One backbencher said: “It’s pretty much the only conversation taking place on the backbenches at the moment and it’s going down very poorly. “The whole One Nation group would struggle with it. I do not see that there’s a democratic mandate based on a 52-48 referendum result for a no-deal Brexit. |
| “People are kicking off about it. I really don’t see it’s going to be the policy. It’s a non-starter. There will be a haemorrhaging of Conservative members of parliament if this happens – they won’t stand.” | |
| Asked whether they would consider their own position, they said: “Yeah, I do feel like that.” | |
| There are more than 100 MPs on the One Nation Tory WhatsApp group and many are said to have written comments critical of Johnson’s potential strategy overnight. | |
| The MP said they could not stand back and accept such a position because the “union would unravel like a gyroscope” and there would be a significant increase to the national debt. | |
| “Do I want my kids in the playground being told by another kid that their mum or dad lost their job because of your parent?” they said. | “Do I want my kids in the playground being told by another kid that their mum or dad lost their job because of your parent?” they said. |
| Another backbencher said they did not believe Johnson would really pursue a no-deal Brexit and would simply go back to the public with a strategy of getting the deal done should he get a majority, and explain to voters that he would immediately overturn the Benn act, which compels him to request an extension to Brexit. | |
| “I don’t believe for a second we will have a policy of no deal,” they said. | “I don’t believe for a second we will have a policy of no deal,” they said. |
| The former Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve who now sits as an independent, described the No 10 memo sent to the Spectator as “propaganda”. | |
| He said: “This is a government that is now no longer governing in the traditional sense – it is engaging in propaganda.”He said the Benn act, which requires the PM to ask for an extension from the EU if there is no agreement with the EU by 19 October, remained watertight. | |
| Should Johnson try and get round it, he said the alliance of MPs campaigning against no deal were in a “reasonable place” to counter him. | |
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| Conservatives | Conservatives |
| Nigel Farage | Nigel Farage |
| Brexit party | Brexit party |
| European Union | European Union |
| Damian Green | Damian Green |
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