Politics

Conservative MP Nick Boles quits party after his soft Brexit plan fails


Nick Boles, a former minister, quit the Conservatives on Monday night and walked out of the House of Commons chamber after his alternative plan for Brexit, which involved a Norway-style single market membership, was defeated for a second time.

Boles’ voice cracked with emotion as he told the House of Commons that he would no longer sit as a Conservative MP. Raising a point of order, he told parliament: “I have given everything to an attempt to find a compromise that can take this country out of the European Union while maintaining our economic strength and our political cohesion.

“I accept I have failed. I have failed chiefly because my party refuses to compromise. I regret therefore to announce I can no longer sit for this party.”

While some on the opposition benches in the House of Commons applauded, one MP could be heard saying: “Oh Nick, don’t go, come on.”

He had already resigned from his local Conservative party in Grantham and Stamford, where he was facing the prospect of deselection over his soft Brexit views.

At the time, he told local members he was “not willing to do what would be necessary to restore a reasonable working relationship with a group of people whose values and views are so much at odds with my own”.

It is the latest example of the Conservatives fracturing over Brexit, after Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen quit to campaign for a second referendum as part of the Independent Group, which is applying to become the new Change UK party.

Boles said he would sit as a “independent progressive conservative” MP rather than join that group. The former planning minister was one of a quartet of Tory and Labour MPs who had worked for months on the common market 2.0 plan.

Under the proposal – also known as “Norway-plus” – they wanted the UK to join the European Free Trade Area (Efta) and in that way regain membership of the EU single market. The government would have then sought to negotiate a customs arrangement to avoid border checks in Northern Ireland.

Boles said last month that he had enjoyed working across the parties. “It’s been a real pleasure,” he said. “We don’t pretend not to be different. We don’t pretend not to have different philosophies, different priorities: and if anything we actually take some pleasure in finding out more about the others. It’s been a great experience, almost whatever the result.”



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