Tories hit by new defections and slump in opinion polls as party divide widens
Ex-cabinet minister Stephen Dorrell announces switch to Change UK, as Conservatives fall to a five-year polling low
The bitter fallout from Brexit is threatening to break the Tory party apart, as a Europhile former cabinet minister Stephen Dorrell on Sunday announces he is defecting to the independent MPs’ group Change UK, and a new opinion poll shows Conservative support plummeting to a five-year low as anti-EU parties surge.
Writing in Sunday’s Observer, Dorrell, who was health secretary under John Major, says he can no longer continue in a party that “has fallen progressively under the influence of an English nationalist outlook” and turned its back on the traditions of many of its greatest former leaders.