Conservative rebel Rory Stewart, who was shown the door the other day, has revealed that he was fired by text while being handed a GQ politician of the year award, amid a move that saw 21 Tories expelled on Tuesday from the party’s ranks over their support for a plan to block a no-deal Brexit.
Mr Stewart, a former international development secretary who partook in the race for the Tory leadership alongside Boris Johnson, warned that up to 40 MPs are poised to defy the sitting prime minister. He referred to the decision to kick him out of the party as “astonishing” and in line with “other countries’” policies, rather that Britain’s: “one opposes the leader, one loses the leadership race, no longer in the cabinet and now apparently thrown out of the party and one's seat too”, he noted to the BBC.
“Remember, only a few weeks ago I was running for the leadership of the Conservative Party against Boris Johnson and I was in the Cabinet. And it has all gone very quickly in six weeks”, Stewart shared when asked about how he took the news. He proceeded by bringing up other Tories who had allegedly been seeking to block a no-deal, but who were convinced to throw their weight behind Johnson.
Rory Stewart rose to prominence among the party’s ranks this year as he became a highly unlikely candidate in the prime ministerial race that saw Johnson approved as a new head of the government.
Quite unexpectedly, though, Stewart made his way to the final five candidates in the race, owing to his extravagant communication manner and firm anti-no-deal stance on the currently key British issue. The former private tutor to Princes William and Harry is no less prominent due to rumours that he might have been a spy, although he flatly denied ever having worked for MI6.
For what it’s worth, according to a Whitehall security source cited by The Daily Telegraph, Stewart was at one point employed by the Secret Intelligence Service as a “fast track” entry after he left Oxford University. Stewart responded by arguing that if he had been a spy, the law would prevent him from being frank on the issue.
In his quirky manner, he has indeed been quite outspoken, especially on social media, on a range of subjects, denouncing the current climate of politics and mass media and likening the latter to “extremists”.
In the most recent Brexit development, UK lawmakers demanded on Tuesday that they take full control of the urgent parliamentary agenda, after opposition MPs prepared a bill that would block a no-deal EU divorce, which is slated for 31 October, by delaying the exit date by three months lest an agreement come along.
For months it’s been clear that there is no majority for no-deal. It has been rejected repeatedly by parliament and no amount of threats or wishful thinking can make it otherwise. No-deal was never a viable strategy. https://t.co/sAvYTdzvCX
— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) September 4, 2019
Johnson, in his turn, earlier threatened with a general election if the bill is passed. Under the Fixed Term Parliament Act, the prime minister needs a two-thirds majority in the Commons if he is to call an early election, which is set for 2022. It is yet unclear whether Labour will give the bill the green light, although Jeremy Corbyn has spoken in favour of it.
Earlier on Tuesday, during the crucial vote in Parliament, a Tory MP, Phillip Lee, defected to the Liberal Democrats in the middle of Mr Johnson's speech – a fact meaning that the Tories no longer enjoy a parliamentary majority, despite having the support of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
I will be voting today against a no-deal Brexit. pic.twitter.com/GledtZhWfH
— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) September 3, 2019
Boris Johnson has explained that his willingness to embrace a no-deal Brexit would enable the UK to exert pressure on the EU to sit down at the negotiating table with Britain in order to work out a new deal that the latter would find satisfactory.
Per Johnson, who earlier promised to deliver Brexit “with or without a deal”, if the EU starts to believe that the cross-party alliance could block a no-deal scheme, then it will be “less likely” to backtrack in any new negotiations.
