The relationship between Tory MPs who want a softer Brexit and local Conservative members has been strained for some time. This morning things came to a head. The backbench MP Nick Boles, who has been campaigning to stop a no-deal Brexit, announced that he was resigning from his local Conservative association. Boles will still remain as the MP for Grantham and Stamford until the next election, and hopes to keep the whip as a Conservative during that time.
In a letter to his local party, Boles set out the reasons for his decision to leave. He remembered how he had been at odds with his association over other issues in the past, such as his support for gay marriage, but their current belief that Britain should leave the EU without a deal meant that he was:
‘not willing to do what would be necessary to restore a reasonable working relationship with a group of people whose values and views are so much at odds with my own.
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