Amber Rudd was one of the more high profile ex-Tory MPs, quitting the cabinet and the party whip in protest at the way her colleagues who had rebelled on taking control of the order paper had been treated. It is therefore particularly awkward that her status has become the subject of such controversy.
This morning, it seemed the Hastings and Rye MP was headed back into the party fold along with the ten colleagues who were handed the whip back last night. Then she announced she was standing down as an MP but hoped to do so with the whip back in place after a ‘good meeting with the Prime Minister’. But shortly after this, Tory chief whip Mark Spencer sent her a letter telling her she wouldn’t be getting the whip back after all, because he didn’t trust her.
In a pretty brutal letter, Spencer told Rudd she had not provided sufficient assurances to him that she wouldn’t change back once again to saying she didn’t have confidence in Boris Johnson and expressing concern about his approach.
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