STEPHEN Phillips Tory MP for Sleaford and North Hykeham quit as an MP yesterday.
He had a majority of more than 24,000 over Labour in his Lincolnshire seat. He said that he was resigning over ‘irreconcilable policy differences’ with the May government.
Counting the resignation as a Tory MP of Zak Goldsmith, over a third runway for Heathrow, the government majority has been reduced from 12 to 10, and possibly to eight if the government loses these seats in by-election.
Phillips quit after May contacted the EU’s Jean Claude Juncker and Germany’s Angela Merkel to tell them that she intended to proceed with the timetable for leaving the EU, activating Article 50, to begin the process at the end of March.
May is to make a November appeal to the Supreme Court against Thursday’s High Court decision that this could not be done without the approval of parliament. The government’s appeal is expected to be heard in early December by all 11 judges of the Supreme Court.
With the Tory majority fast disappearing, a few more Tory defections will be enough to force a snap general election, and a complete realignment of UK politics – all to foil the June Referendum result and keep the UK in the EU despite the wishes of the electorate.
Former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg – now the Lib Dems’ Europe spokesman – said his party would seek to join with others ‘in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords to amend the legislation’ to tell the government to pursue a ‘soft Brexit’ that would keep the UK within the EU’s single market, and within the EU.
Former Conservative cabinet minister Theresa Villiers said yesterday that ‘Frankly I think it would be a constitutional outrage if unelected Liberal Democrat peers were to stand in the way of implementing the clear result of a referendum in which 33 million people took part.’
Communities Secretary Sajid Javid told BBC One’s Question Time that the ruling by the High Court was a ‘clear attempt to frustrate the will of the British people’ despite a ‘very, very clear’ result from the EU referendum. Conservative peer Lady Wheatcroft told BBC Radio 4’s Today she was willing to table an amendment to future legislation to delay the Brexit process, saying it was ‘only right to delay triggering Article 50 until we have a clearer idea of what it actually entails’.
Writing in Friday’s Daily Telegraph, UKIP leader Nigel Farage called the court’s decision a ‘great betrayal’ and said ‘the power of the prime minister to act on the mandate given by 17.4 million voters has been snatched away.’
It is clear that the June referendum result is forcing a major political realignment in the UK, and to begin with a crisis general election, after which a pro-EU majority of Labour, Tory, Lib Dem and SNP MPs and peers will seek to keep the UK in the EU against the will of the people.
In this situation the trade unions must mobilise for a general strike to bring down any pro-EU coupist regime, and bring in a workers government that will break with the EU, sack the judiciary, shut down the House of Lords, and expropriate the UK bosses and bankers to bring in a planned socialist economy. A British socialist state will then appeal to the European working class to follow its example!