The Spectator

Full text: Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston’s Tory resignation letter

Dear Prime Minister.

It is with regret that we are writing to resign the Conservative whip and our membership of the Party. We voted for you as Leader and Prime Minister because we believed you were committed to a moderate, open-hearted Conservative Party in the One Nation tradition. A party of economic competence representing the best of British business, delivering good jobs, opportunity and prosperity for all, funding world class public services and tackling inequalities. We had hoped you would also continue to modernise our party so that it could reach out and broaden its appeal to younger voters and to embrace and reflect the diversity of the communities we seek to represent.

Sadly, the Conservative Party has increasingly abandoned these principles and values with a shift to the right of British politics. 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 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, publicly and privately funded, with its own leader, whip and policy.

The shift to the right has been exaggerated by blatant entryism. Not only has this been tolerated, it has been actively welcomed in some quarters. A purple momentum is subsuming the Conservative Party, much as the hard left has been allowed to consume and terminally undermine the Labour party.

We have tried consistently for some time to keep the party close to the centre ground of British politics. You assured us when you first sought the leadership that this was your intention. We haven’t changed, the Conservative party has and it no longer reflects the values and beliefs we share with millions of people throughout the United Kingdom

The final straw for us has been the government’s disastrous handling of Brexit.

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