In a furious diatribe, former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe lashed out at Conservative rebels who sent in no-confidence letters and could potentially oust Prime Minister Boris Johnson tonight in a confidence vote. She said they should be concentrating on the real ‘enemy’ – the Labour party – instead of stirring up a civil war within the Conservative Party.
She slammed Tory rebels on GB News, saying: “The only person, the only people who will benefit from this is Keir Starmer and the Labour party.
“Nobody else is going to benefit.
“And there isn’t some great cause that is driving this.
“There is a cause that was driving the ousting of Theresa May, which was getting Brexit done. And there was a unity around a cause.
“There’s no cause here.”
“What you’ve got here is a desperate gaggle of MPs with a vast range of motives. Some of them are too new to the game, they’re seriously scared whereas others had seen it all before.
“Then, you’ve got those like Tobias Ellwood who said over the weekend: well, if we get rid of Boris, we can re-join the single market. I mean heavens above; they still want to fight that.”
“Then, we’ve got people like Andrew Bridgen who normally talks sense but who’s come out against Boris.
“And then says: but we need to make sure whoever succeeds him is, I quote: ‘isn’t a Brexiteer, he can’t make sure.’
“What he’s actually proposing is to ditch a confirmed Brexiteer for an uncertainty.”
“But the motives are vast, they’re wide. And everybody is fighting everybody else except Labour. That’s who they should be fighting.
“They should be concentrating on the enemy in front of them.”
Ms Widdecombe’s call comes as Tory MPs are about to hold a confidence vote against Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It remains unclear whether Tory rebels will garner the 180 votes required to oust Mr Johnson.