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The Independent Group want a rerun of the coalition years

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Friday 22 February 2019 14:16 GMT
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Who is part of the Independent Group?

The reported statements of the Tory defectors – “if we do our job right there won’t be a Tory party to return to”, and their comments that they would only like to see a handful more Tory defectors to avoid the risk of an election – outline, to me, the basis of a Tory ploy. No matter the outcome of Brexit, the Tory party is destined to fracture. I believe the cabinet resignation threats are intended to pull May towards a softer Brexit, in order to break away the ERG, thus splitting the party into a small group of hardcore Europhobes and a 200/250-strong group of “moderate” conservatives.

At the same time the Independent Group will be attempting to seduce away as many Corbynsceptic Labour MPs as possible. When the inevitable split happens, they would either enter into coalition or merge the two “centre ground” groups into one new party, ostensibly representing that mythical “sensible and pragmatic” centre ground vote. Both tendencies believe in pro-austerity, pro-privatisation, pro-deregulation free market dogma, so there would be “more in common” between them.

The Tory wing could point to the extant ERG as proof that they’d shed their toxicity in order to salve the consciences of austerity-lite ex-Labour MPs, and those same ex-Labour MPs would provide this hypothetical new party with a veneer of progressive respectability.

It would, however, be little more than the Tory party in all but name, pushing for further decades of ruinous austerity measures designed to punish the poor for the mistakes of the rich. If successful, it would be little more than a rerun of the coalition government: an extreme-right faction, a Tory party enabled into power by a usefully foolish “centre ground” party, and a weakened Labour Party unable to protect the poor from the ravages of the government.

Much more likely it would go very wrong for the Independent Group due to tribalism and the resolution of Brexit meaning a return to values-based politics – of which they have none. I would not be surprised if the pro-EU wing of the Tory party and the defectors are planning exactly this between them.

Those who think Conservatives sharing benches with Labour sounds ridiculous, I present to you: the Independent Group.

James Walker
Address supplied

Bring it back to the people

When I vote in a general election, I vote for the party that I want to govern the country and I guess I am not alone in taking that approach whoever the local candidate may be.

Is it not then incumbent on that member of parliament to consult his or her constituents before leaving that party?

Seems to me that there is a lack of integrity being shown by those members of parliament who leave their original party without such consultation.

Doug Fowler
Thornbury

Soubry is an impressive politician

Listening to Anna Soubry’s main speech made me feel dizzy. As a former Labour supporter and Labour councillor, who would never ever vote for the party that has been trashing the UK since 1979, my admiration for Soubry felt a little like suddenly looking down from the top balcony of a skyscraper.

Obviously everything is relative. She was, after all, just displaying the kind of common sense, intelligence and ability to string a coherent sentence and cogent arguments together that we used to take for granted in those who achieved high office.

It has been so long, however, since we witnessed anyone of her calibre taking the limelight for any significant amount of time. It was a little like encountering a unicorn.

Amanda Baker
Edinburgh

What about the Lib Dems?

We are told that very large numbers of people are rejoicing that an (allegedly) middle-ground political group has formed itself.

So why haven’t they all been voting Liberal Democrat? Something doesn’t add up here.

Penny Little
Address supplied

Ex-Labour and Tory MPs are odd bedfellows

Apropos these defections, I find it quite bewildering that these Labour (ex) MPs even sit in the same room as the likes of Soubry and Allen. Have they seen their voting histories for policies that have seriously damaged the lives of us “ordinary” people? Hypocrites all of them.

The posing and preening for the cameras also reeks of narcissism, a state in which people think they’re so much more moral than everyone else, think we should be grateful for their presence in our lives for that morality, desperately need admiration from other people but also lack empathy. Hence the cameras and lack of remorse for the constituents whose votes they have betrayed.

T Maunder
Leeds

A Tory subplot

Amidst all the turmoil over Brexit, there is, of course, a subplot, the question of who will be our next prime minister. If Theresa May steps down this summer, the parliamentary party, or what is left of it, will select two candidates to succeed her.

The choice of who will preside over this country for the next three years will then be in the hands of Conservative Party members. One does not have to spend long in the comments section of ConservativeHome to see what a ragbag they are, many of them long since out of touch with the realities of the modern world.

Sadly, the manoeuvrings of “the Saj”, Boris, and others in the weeks to come will be defined by their campaigns to appease them.

Charles Freeman
Brandeston

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