By Finian Cunningham
September 13, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - The ultimate Brexit casualty could very well be Britain’s ruling Conservative Party. Cabinet resignations and the purging of rebel parliamentarians by Boris Johnson point to his party heading for a historic schism.
Another illustration of just how intense the fracturing strains within the Tory party have reached was this: among the 21 MPs that Johnson expelled this week for defying his no-deal Brexit plans, were two former chancellors, Kenneth Clarke and Philip Hammond, and Sir Nicholas Soames. They will not be allowed to stand in any future election as party candidates.
Soames is the grandson of Conservative icon and wartime leader Winston Churchill, who is also said to be a political hero of the current prime minister. However, in a scathing putdown, Soames said there was no comparison between Churchill and Johnson, saying the latter was neither a statesman nor a diplomat, having made his career by telling lies about the European Union. The Tory grandee said he feared the Conservative Party was doomed to split because it was now being led by what he called a “Brexit sect.”
This apprehension about the emergence of a hard-right, nationalistic version of the Conservative Party led by Johnson and his Brexiteer cabinet has been voiced repeatedly by former MPs who have quit in protest. They claim the Brexit crisis is warping the party from what they view as its traditional political beliefs.
Amber Rudd, the work and pensions minister who resigned from the cabinet last week over his purging of MPs excoriated Johnson for “political vandalism.” She said: “I cannot stand by as good, loyal, moderate Conservatives are expelled.”
On the one hand, there is what we might call a “moderate” Tory wing which compromises lawmakers who would prefer to remain in the European Union, or who at least advocate a “soft Brexit” whereby there is an ongoing trade association with the 27-member bloc.
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