Conservative party

The rebel MPs kicked out of the Tory party held a phone conference last night to plot their next move, I understand. The group, now numbering 22 after Amber Rudd’s resignation, is keen to work across the Commons to get a deal past MPs that the European Union would accept, and it wouldn’t be a million miles away from what Theresa May tried – and failed – to get MPs to approve. There’s another meeting today, this time of the group ‘MPs for a Deal’, which is being led by Rory Stewart from the ex-Tory side, and Labour’s Caroline Flint and Stephen Kinnock. They don’t want a ‘carbon copy of

Amber Rudd has quit the Cabinet and resigned the Tory whip. Rudd’s departure deepens the split in the Tory party and will be a particular blow to Boris Johnson; the pair have always got on well personally despite their very different views on Brexit. What will worry Number 10 is that Rudd might start something of a domino effect. There are, as I said in the Sun this morning, several Cabinet Ministers who are worried about the government’s direction and irritated at not being more involved in Number 10’s decision making. I hear that others might follow her out of the door in the next 48 hours, as we discuss

Rebel ex-Tory MPs are complaining of ‘unconstitutional’ treatment by their party and are planning to stand at the next election as Conservatives, I have learned. The MPs who lost the whip last night when they backed a motion to take control of the Order Paper were this morning told all their constituency data had been taken away from them, and that they must remove the Conservative logo from their websites, correspondence and so on. But despite this, a number of them want to say that they are Conservatives at the election, and are preparing for a dramatic legal battle with the party. As I reported earlier, all the rebels took

The Tory rebels on tonight’s motion are in the process of losing the party whip. There were many more than the whips had expected, but this may well be seen by those around Boris Johnson as being a way of getting rid of the sort of MPs who would always be a thorn in the Prime Minister’s flesh. There is little point in having an election to get a majority if that majority turns out to be hollow, with a large group of backbenchers who won’t actually back the government on the key issue of the day. All this might be true, but the Conservative party tonight is in a

Parliament returns on Tuesday and it is expected that anti no-deal MPs will – with John Bercow’s help – quickly seize control of the order paper. They will then try and rush through a bill designed to stop the UK from leaving the EU without a deal. I report in the Sun this morning that Number 10 will treat these votes as they would a confidence vote with anyone who doesn’t back the government being immediately disqualified from standing for the Tories again. They hope that this will keep some waverers in the government lobby next week. It would mean that if former Cabinet Ministers such as Philip Hammond voted

We know that the Conservatives are gearing up for an election in the next few months. Their official line is that they don’t want one, largely because it will appear better if they are apparently pushed into a poll, but that doesn’t mean that preparations aren’t well underway. One of the main benefits of proroguing parliament is that it allows the Tories to produce an election manifesto before there is an election, using the Queen’s Speech. In today’s Guardian, I’ve written about what’s going to be in that manifesto/Queen’s Speech: the focus will be on education and crime. The latter is largely there because Team Boris feel Theresa May left

Downing Street has just confirmed that the Prime Minister will be asking the Queen to prorogue parliament ahead of a new Queen’s Speech on 14 October. In a letter sent to MPs this morning, Boris Johnson claims that this is a move designed to put a fresh domestic programme before Parliament, writing: ‘I therefore intend to bring forward a new bold and ambitious domestic legislative agenda for the renewal of our country after Brexit. There will be a significant Brexit legislative programme to get through but that should be no excuse for a lack of ambition!’ The focus in the letter and in briefings from No.10 is on domestic policy,

Sajid Javid has this afternoon cancelled a speech he was due to give tomorrow, and brought forward the one-year spending review to early September. It was due to take place later in the autumn. A statement from the Treasury said ‘the forthcoming Spending Round will instead be brought forward in early September and will cover the themes and priorities he was due to outline’. This isn’t a surprise for any of those in government who had been working on the spending review. Secretaries of State have been returning to Whitehall today, ready for meetings with the Treasury this week about their spending envelopes. They hadn’t been aware that the Spending

Mr S was curious to spy a puzzling email sent out by CCHQ to their prospective parliamentary candidates today. The message asked would-be Tory runners to send in their CVs so that the party can select candidates for the next general election. Recipients were told that anyone selected as a parliamentary contender would cease to be a candidate if ‘an existing MP exercises an incumbency right over it’. The email reads: The Board of the Conservative Party has decided to proceed with selections in constituencies that would be affected by Major Boundary changes under the Parliamentary Boundary Review. Therefore the following seats which we invite you to apply for are

He might be the only MP to have accidentally posted a screenshot of emails about ‘GE2019’ on Instagram, but Damian Hinds is far from the only one spending their summer planning to fight in a poll later this year. All the parties are gearing up for a campaign. We’ve even had glimpses of how Boris Johnson would fight such an election, with today’s ComRes poll for the Telegraph suggesting that 44 per cent of voters would back Boris Johnson if he suspended parliament to get Brexit done. There are quibbles about the way the questions were asked in this poll, but it’s an important one because it chimes with the

I’ve never voted Conservative and I never will. Having been raised in a working-class home, I can’t get past the fact that had the Labour party not come into being, the Tories would have kept my people serfs for as long as inhumanly possible. But I’m also an extreme Brexiteer; far from the past three years being boring (anyone who says this reveals themselves as such a monumental dullard that we should remove their right to vote), I consider that this nation spent the four decades up to 23 June 2016 sleepwalking into the shadowlands of EU dreariness — and disaster. Only a halfwit could fail to comprehend that the

Usually after a big government reshuffle, the happiest-looking people are the ministers, whether they’ve survived the axe or are celebrating a promotion. But at the end of this week, the most cheerful MPs appear to be the ones who left government, whether of their own volition or after being sacked by Boris Johnson. They’ve been spotted at the cricket and are happily announcing their holiday plans with their family on social media in a way that most politicians shy away from, for fear of appearing to have too much fun. But who is really in the best situation: those in the government, or those now on the outside? In my

As a life-long Labour voter and campaigner against Tory policies, particularly when it comes to issues relating to violence against women and girls, I find it odd to be writing this sentence. But today, the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission published a report into prostitution that is so progressive, so comprehensive, and so practical that it leaves the other parties with egg on their faces. Reports into prostitution tend to fall into two categories: either products of unbridled ideology dressed up as research, or a dull sifting of evidence from other countries. Home Office work on the issue falls squarely into the latter. Unenlightening and inconclusive, the tiny proportion of

Priti Patel is the new Home Secretary. This is likely to attract a fair bit of opprobrium from Boris Johnson’s critics, given she is a supporter of the death penalty. Whether or not she has been given any remit to examine that particular policy issue, she has a big job on her hands. The Home Office is one of the hardest departments to run. Theresa May managed to survive it, largely by micromanaging everyone else into the dust. Her successor Amber Rudd did not, finding that obeying her boss too well led to her being implicated in the Windrush scandal. Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, May’s aides in the Home

Boris Johnson will now be receiving plenty of unsolicited advice about how to be Prime Minister. As his victory speech a few minutes ago showed, though, he’s not planning to ditch one of the qualities that got him into this job in the first place. Brand Boris isn’t about the typical prime ministerial behaviour, stood squarely behind a lectern and trying to offer gravitas. To try to squeeze Johnson into this mould would be about as successful as Gordon Brown’s attempts to look cheerful. That’s why his speech was based around the acronym ‘DUDE’ – Deliver Brexit, Unite our Country, Defeat Jeremy Corbyn and Energise. He told the hall: ‘I