The effort to deselect Dominic Grieve

He lost, but it won't change anything will it. He will keep the whip like Boles did so unless there's general election it won't matter.

I don't see any good coming from this long term anyway. If Tories allow themselves to become defined by Brexit they will just become the far extreme party which will lose in the long run.

Thanks n88uk - strange there is no news on this.

hes been deselected hasnt he?

Er it basically means he will be yes. He will likely resign from constituency and ask to keep the whip like Boles did, which they will likely grant even though he is rebelling against everything the government are currently doing, they will also be wary of this idea of just vote out all the moderates and where it will lead the party at an election.

the ukip guy who stood against him and lost has ousted him .

The thing is 300 votes will not be representative of the constituency as a whole.

there will be plenty more going his way. I hope the traitors who surfaced these last 48 hours are ruing their avarice til the day they pop off. What a legacy they have given themselves & all for what? Another whooping that's what.How to kill your political ambitions in one fell swoop, by trying to impress their euro dummies & at the same time alienate their constituents & the greater public. Well done!

The idea the likes of Grieve care about that is folly, he's a multi-millionaire, he's doing what he believes is best for the country and standing by it, should be commended. And I would guess he will continue to do so. It's more fool the Conservative party if they start losing brains like Grieve. If they allow the party to become UKIP light it will do damage to them at the polls.

A large percentage of Beaconsfield (admittedly not a majority) voted to 'Leave' and Grieve's behaviour since article 50 was triggered may be considered by his constituents to be an attempt to thwart Brexit.


I'm surprised Broxtowe Conservatives didn't try to oust Anna Soubry before she crossed the floor.

So you think that Grieve should be commended for going against the referendum result?
He's a traitor to his party and democracy. Should be kicked out unceremoniously.

Because it takes time to organise and likely relies on infiltrations. You've got a handful of people effectively representing the constituency which will be neither representative and also easy to corrupt, as you only need to sneak like 50-100 into the local association and you've taken control.

The likes of Soubry would have face it themselves anyway.

as all of the MSM say the nutcase has got into bed with the ERG; how come the lead is now 8%? More nonsense

Grieve is doing what he thinks is best for the country. Least he isn't one of these leave turncoats who vote for the slave state deal because that have no principles. Conservatives ultimately will pay dearly for removing the moderates at the election.

So why did he stand on a manifesto that pledged to leave the EU?

Because at the time he believed it was the right thing to do, however it's become clearer and clearer that whatever form of Brexit will be a disaster for the country, and the issues have moved so far away from what was on offer at the referendum that they don't resemble the other anymore.

You only need to watch Grieve in debates to know what sort of politician Conservatives are losing, and this is someone who at their core is a Conservative through and through, it will be bleak times ahead when Conservatives allow themselves to become defined by being the hard Brexit party as Brexit won't last forever.

He spoke of his opposition to Brexit shortly after the election.

Unlike Soubry, Grieve was returned with a healthy majority in 2017. However, that is irrelevant if he is deselected.

Yes but it also highlights the flaws of the deselection method when he is deselected by the UKIP representative who got minimal votes infiltrating the local associate, so you've got 300 representing like 80,000 or whatever.

n88uk,

Do you think the Conservatives will return to the Hague/Howard era, lurching further and further to the right?

Soubry I imagine is almost certainly out next election anyway, hard to see her keeping that hotly contested seat in a new party.

How does the association's rules allow someone to join it who is a known member of another party?

It's hard to know until we see an election manifesto from them. They've created their own problems though, they though the referendum was an easy way to steal some easy votes from UKIP, it was meant to bring the party together instead it's going to set them back for a long time eventually. They have been fortunate to be up against rather weak opposition, but tbh even Corbyn looks appealing when compared to the current rubbish.

The Tories are going to be a broken party though, let's say this election happens coming up, what is the Tory manifesto exactly? May's deal which in reality we know half the party hate and are voting through gritted teeth. A WTO Brexit that will be rejected by 1/3 of the candidates regardless. A soft Brexit that will be rejected probably by another 1/3. They have allowed themselves to become defined by Brexit and it seems it will consume them ultimately as I fail to see how they can even put out a functioning manifesto in an election, which is something the polls right now won't take into account.

And the real problem with becoming defined by Brexit is one way or another in a few years Brexit will all be over, and then what, whenever a party is defined by the extremes it comes crashing down eventually. People will move beyond Brexit and what will they be offering then.

Iain Dale
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This is ridiculous. I may disagree with him on Brexit matters, but Dominic Grieve is a quality MP and a genuine Conservative. The Conservative Party is a broad church not a narrow, intolerant sect. The moment it becomes the latter it ceases to command the support of the public.

That is from a Brexiteer who realises the folly of moves like this in the long term of allowing Tories allowing themselves to be defined by Brexit policy.

Brexit is the biggest challenge this current crop of MPs have ever faced so quite rightly how they've acted will define them.
You made a point about Remainer MPs sticking together. Once the referendum result was known surely every MP should have been in the Leavers camp?

The problem is it was never going to work like that, and this is another image I'll paint why Conservatives can't allow themselves to just become totally defined by 1 issue, in fact this is true of anything, not just Brexit.

Different areas of the country want different things, so take Justine Greening, most Brexiteers will hate her and what she's doing I presume, yet I assume it's unlikely she gets deselected in her 73% remain London constituency, but therein is the problem of being defined by Brexit. What are Conservatives going to do as they will driving the likes of Greening out but in turn that could end up driving all the London vote out.

It's even more risky when these matters are being handled by a handful of voters who no-one can claim are representative of pretty much anything really.

Grieve at his core is a Tory through and through, if he wasn't he would have left ages ago given their Brexit policy the last few years, but he's stayed as he obviously is in line with Conservative policy, but the Tories are allowing themselves to become defined by Brexit which will prove their downfall if they aren't careful.

I think the last part is tricky. Problem is the country is like the MPs divided on Brexit.

That's where May not seeking the cross party consensus from the off was the failed policy, she made Conservatives the Brexit party and it all about them, but it was never going to work when Tories themselves are so divided on it, and that's true of their constituencies too. Yes the majority of Tories voted leave, but you still have heavy remain areas who won't at all be impressed by what the Tories are currently doing (tbh are the heavy leave areas impressed by what the Tories are currently doing?).

If someone like Greening for example come out as a leaver after the referendum wouldn't she just lose her seat next general election anyway, as is, I assume she is in huge danger regardless due to Conservative policy rather than her own policy as her majority isn't very big anyway, and it will be really easy for Labour to just say Greening might oppose Brexit, but her party doesn't, we will oppose it for you.

You constantly talk purely about the Tories and Brexit when in fact the whole of parliament was charged with getting us out of the EU.
In fact Labour stood on a similar manifesto to the Tories in that respect at the 2017 elections.

Yes but they stood on different brands of leave didn't they, that's the problem of leave being divided for one reason or another. As was Labour were purposely vague on Brexit during the GE, it's talked in hindsight like it was a Brexit election but it wasn't really, if anything Tories running it as one is what cost them their majority, they ran it with no real policy other than we will negotiate a better Brexit deal than Corbyn thinking it was a shoe in they'd get a bigger majority and it backfired big time as Labour mostly ran it on social issues and put Brexit on the back burner.

However Tories ran on what taking us out of the CU, some mantra that no deal is better than a bad deal (a clear sound bite given it's obvious now that they don't actually believe that).

Labour ran on the idea of remaining in the CU and keeping access to the single market, it was purposefully vague, but they always rejected the notion of no deal, something at the time that was used against them by Tories.

The end result though is those two visions aren't really compatible are they.

There are plenty of Labour leave MPs/who now want to leave, you only need too look at those who voted against a 2nd ref the other day. Yet hardly any of those are supporting May's deal either, because that's not what they ran on either.

The 2 parties plans were simply not compatible, another big issue when it come to getting us actually out, and again this is all the fault of May for not very early on realising that to make Brexit work it had to be cross party, not just a Conservative issue, May failed to realise this and it has cost her badly.

Basically it should have been accepted very early on that Brexit itself transcended the party, neither of the main parties ran to leave and neither fully agreed on it, to get a working consensus you need to work cross party to make it happen. It was never going to work when you've got May making it a Conservative only issue having to get it pass hardline ERG types, Grieve types and the DUP, it was impossible to find the common ground.

Our position should have been defined but the problem of going through parliament as such meant we'd need to have shown our hand too early.
May contrary to whats been said on here spoke to the party leaders and the leaders of the devolved parliaments/assemblies.
It's obvious that common ground couldn't be agreed and a concensus was impossible.
In hindsight this was mission impossible but the default position was and still should be that in the event of the UK parliament being unable to agree any deals offered by the EU then we leave with a No Deal.

While yes, it would have worked much better than what was happened which has been an out and out shambles. There's barely been a plan A let and out a plan B, and just think without that ruling May would have just been able to impose this rubbish on us and no-one would have been able to do anything about it.

The party leaders were the wrong people to go to, it was the people in the parties who had the potential of working with you that should have been involved. Corbyn likely would have rejected anything, that's party politics at the end of the day, but there were Labour MPs who would have been open to proposals if they'd been involved from the beginning, even now it's these Labour MPs trying to make May's deal palatable for them rather than May doing anything really the other way around (apart from a few apparent bribes going on, but that's just desperation in itself).

If you want to see how easy these things are to infiltrate btw and why such a dangerous precedent will be set is apparently there was 60-70 in attendance last year, and you just had a vote done by like 314. It's really dangerous if most those are new members to just give those members free reign, and it will be the Tories that lose out in the end if they don't stop it.

In saying mission impossible I mean for May.
Although people are quick to have a go at Cameron I think he'd have done a better job than May.
As regards the Labour back benchers I think the saddest thing I've ever heard was that in the light of Mays speech to the nation Lisa Nandy and others, including some Tory rebels, said that they were willing to vote for Mays deal until she made that speech.
Imagine voting against something so important just to spite May. Sums up this current lot of MPs.

Right that's me out of my poker tourney so bedtime. Goodnight.