Mercer’s threat may be toothless, but it demonstrates May’s loss of control
Show of defiance: Johnny Mercer reckons he can exploit Theresa May’s weakness to demand action on a single issue. What if large numbers of Conservatives follow suit?
There’s not really much point in withdrawing support from the government over everything but Brexit when Brexit is all that’s left on the agenda.
Still, Johnny Mercer’s decision to make a stand – no matter how weak – on the prosecution of British servicemen over historical allegations demonstrates very clearly Theresa May’s loss of authority.
She has no Parliamentary majority now; her alliance with the DUP has been used up and it will cost another vast amount of public money to renew it, if she even thinks that would be worthwhile.
Some Conservative MPs have quit to join Change UK and one is facing the loss of his seat after being convicted of expenses fraud.
Now Mr Mercer has made a show of resistance.
Will others – who may be in a position to do more damage – do the same?
Conservative MP Johnny Mercer says he has withdrawn his support for the government over the historical prosecution of British servicemen.
A former Army officer, Mr Mercer called on Theresa May in a letter to end the “macabre spectacle of elderly veterans being dragged back to Northern Ireland” to face possible prosecution.
In his letter to the prime minister, the Plymouth Moor View MP said he found investigations into historic allegations surrounding ex-services personnel “personally offensive”
He said he was not to prepared to vote for Government legislation – except on Brexit – until the Government took “clear and concrete steps” to end the “abhorrent process”.
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He’s Spot on is he while immunity is giving to those who killed the squardies hmmm
Perhaps all sides should agree that there be no more prosecutions of ANYBODY involved in the conflict. Then there could be some serious investigations into incidents without possible perpetrators trying to obscure their roles. But that would require the Tories, and others, to accept that no Irish Republican would face prosecution for anything as well. And they have struggled to accept that idea right from the start of the Belfast agreement and before.
For them, “the enemy” is always the one guilty of war crimes, never their own side. And they seethe with resentment to think that their side didn’t win total victory in Ireland, but was forced to the conference table.
I fear that this apparent Tory indifference to the problem of the Irish border reflects their willingness to dismiss the Peace Agreement and to even welcome more conflict, hoping that “this time” they will “win”.
Typically hypocritical
If it were such a “personally offensive” and “abhorrent process” to him being an ex-serviceman himself, and yet he was supporting it, until that is, he’s found a way to hold his support to ransom.
I hope his constituents can soon show him what they feel about his hypocrisy
Good to see the nasties fighting themselves.