Writing to the prime minister, Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston said:
“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 ERG [European Research Group] and DUP.
“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 final straw for us has been this government’s disastrous handling of Brexit.
"Following the EU referendum of 2016, no genuine effort was made to build a cross-party, let alone a national consensus to deliver Brexit. Instead of seeking to heal the divisions or to tackle the underlying causes of Brexit, the priority was to draw up ‘red lines’. The 48% were not only sidelined, they were alienated.”
They added: “The country deserves better. We believe there is a failure of politics in general, not just in the Conservative Party but in both main parties as they move to the fringes, leaving millions of people with no representation. Our politics needs urgent and radical reform and we are determined to play our part.”
www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/three-tory-mps-join-the-breakaway-independent-group-1-5899355
Theresa May's tactic of constantly indulging the right-wing brextreemists of the ERG and her allies in the DUP, whilst sidelining and ignoring the more moderate "one nation" Tories and all the Remainers, in an effort to save her party, has seriously back-fired.
The sensible Tory MPs have put up with it for far too long. She is like a very poor teacher who only pays attention to the naughty children. She has allowed herself to be taken hostage by the thugs, -ironic from someone who once warned that the Tories were seen as the "nasty party". So far only three have left. I wonder if more will follow.
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