Former Tory leader William Hague has warned fellow Conservatives that their party is facing its “greatest crisis in modern times” and may be on the verge of splitting along Remain and Leave lines.
Hague is a supporter of Theresa May’s controversial Brexit deal and is urging Conservative MPs to come to the prime minister’s aid, even if only to avoid such a break-up.
“There is a danger of the party falling apart,” he writes in his column in The Daily Telegraph, adding that failing to rally behind May could endanger her position as party leader and risk a second referendum or general election.
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“MPs can choose whether they are to be the unwitting tools of their opponents, or draw together against attempts to use Brexit to bring down the policies they have always fought for. At some point soon they will have to decide if they have the common resolve still to be that great party,” he continues.
Hague’s warning comes shortly after Brexit minister Kwasi Kwarteng admitted that “one or two people might leave” the Conservative Party amid the ongoing row over the UK’s exit from the European Union, reports The Sun.
Pro-Remain Tory MP Dominic Grieve, who has rebelled several times over Brexit in the Commons, has also voiced fears for his party’s future. He told Sky News: “There is a risk the party will split and cannot continue in its current form.”
Pressed on his view, Grieve said: “I can see that this is of such a fundamental character this issue that it may be the end of the Conservative Party in its current form, and that bothers me very much because one of the products of Brexit has been total paralysis on virtually every other area of policy.”
Such concerns have become more widespread after three Brexit-supporting former cabinet ministers, Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and Esther McVey, signalled in television interviews over the weekend “that they they would be interested in running for the Conservative leadership”, reports The Guardian.
Grieve told Sky that Johnson would be a “disastrous leader” for the Conservatives and that should the former London mayor take over, he would find it “very difficult in those circumstances to take the Conservative whip”.
“What we are witnessing in this tragic drama are two separate Tory parties with two diametrically opposed sets of belief on Europe,” says Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail. “They are fighting like ferrets in a sack with seemingly scant care what is in the interests of the British public and the truth is that May is losing the ability to govern.”
“More than 100 Tory MPs have already indicated they regard May’s deal as a sell-out to Brussels,” Oborne continues. Some of them “might quit the party and fight [a future] election as independents”, while some Tory remainers would probably resign too, “feeling that the PM’s deal betrays their Europhile values”, he adds.
Even just a few months ago “there was still optimism that once Brexit day arrived, the Tories could pick a new leader free of EU baggage and reunite”, says The Spectator’s James Forsyth. “Theresa May’s deal has crushed that hope.”
So is some form of split inevitable?
Not quite yet, says Forsyth. “Most Tory MPs remain aware that a Corbyn government would be different from your typical Labour government; that even if it only lasted for one term it would leave an indelible mark on the country,” he argues.
“For this reason, there is a reluctance to bring the house down.”
