Two Conservative party vice-chairs have resigned in protest at Theresa May’s Chequers plans, timing their departures to a few minutes before the prime minister was due to give a press conference with Angela Merkel.
Ben Bradley and Maria Caulfield both released resignation letters saying they opposed May’s Brexit proposals, resigning in the wake of the departures of Boris Johnson, David Davis and Steve Baker.
In his resignation letter, Bradley, the MP for Mansfield, said the Chequers proposals would leave the UK “tied to EU trade regulations” and he believed the outcome would be “the worst of all worlds” because it would “not deliver a Brexit in spirit”.
Caulfield, the MP for Lewes, wrote: “I cannot support the direction of travel in the Brexit negotiations, which, in my view, do not fully embrace the opportunities that Brexit can provide.”
She added: “The policy may assuage vested interests, but the voters will find out and their representatives will be found out. This policy will be bad for our country and bad for the party. The direct consequences of that will be prime minister Corbyn.”
Conservative party vice-chairs are not government ministers, although they are paid a modest salary of up to £10,000. There were eight vice-chairs before the resignations were announced, reporting to party chairman Brandon Lewis and party deputy chairman James Cleverly.
Hard Brexiters in the Conservative party had threatened May with a “drip drip” of resignations that would undermine her premiership following Friday’s agreement at Chequers of a new negotiating strategy with the European Union. They were alarmed at proposals to align goods and services with the EU after Brexit, with Johnson saying in his resignation letter that it would leave the UK heading “for the status of a colony”.
A Labour source said: “With just weeks to go to negotiate Brexit, NHS waiting lists growing and pay packets being squeezed, the Conservative party continues to tear itself apart. Something has got to give.”
