Kenneth Clarke: The instant a Brextremist gets installed as Tory leader, he’s off to Change UK.

Labour supporters should be loving the thought that they can just sit back and watch the Tories self-destructing – and taking other parties with them.

What, for example, was going through the mind of Stephen Dorrell when he decided to quit the Conservative benches in favour of Change UK – The Independent Group, saying in the process that they were the natural heirs of historic Conservatism?

He said: “I shall continue to describe myself, as I always have, as a liberal Conservative but I shall do so in future as a supporter of Change UK – The Independent Group, which I believe has become the natural home of those who regard themselves, as I do, as the heirs of Disraeli, Churchill, Macmillan and Heath.”

Another Tory, Neil Carmichael, has also left the party and both he and Mr Dorrell seem keen to represent Change UK in the forthcoming European Parliament elections.

And most damaging of all to the Conservative Party, grandee Kenneth Clarke has signalled that he may leave if Theresa May is replaced as leader of the Conservative Party by a “hard” Brexiter.

But this is also hugely harmful to the founders of the independent group in Westminster – all formerly Labour MPs who claimed that party had lost its way under Jeremy Corbyn.

It shows that Conservatives believe critics such as myself were right to describe the likes of Chuka Umunna, Chris Leslie and Luciana Berger as Tories in Labour ties.

And it suggests that opinion polls showing the Conservatives – rather than Labour – losing popularity to Change UK are correctly reflecting the mood of the public that these so-called independents are nothing other than more neoliberals in a different disguise.

Clearly the mask isn’t very convincing as we’ve all seen through it.

Source: Tories hit by new defections and slump in opinion polls as party divide widens | Politics | The Guardian

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