‘Large’ number of Tory MPs set to vote against party, which would also lose ground to Lib Dems

The Conservatives will lose significant votes to the Liberal Democrats or other remain parties if they force through a no-deal Brexit against the will of parliament, the party stalwart Michael Heseltine has warned.

Imposing a no-deal departure without MPs’ consent would be “an intolerable position for democracy”, said the former deputy prime minister, who is heavily critical of Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s lead adviser and Brexit enforcer.

“It is absolutely central that parliament should be able to call to account people who represent them as ministers, and at the moment we’re being told by a particular figure, who’s proud of it, that he’s more or less running the show,” Lord Heseltine said on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday show.

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In response, the policing minister, Kit Malthouse, a longtime Johnson ally, accused Heseltine of being among Conservative figures from the past who had “never quite reconciled themselves to the idea” of Brexit.

Heseltine, whose near-30 year frontbench career culminated in him serving as deputy prime minister under John Major, has been a persistent critic of Brexit. He lost the Conservative whip after saying he had voted Lib Dem in the European elections in May.

In a joint comment piece in the Sunday Times with the crossbench peer Betty Boothroyd, a former Labour MP, Heseltine argued a no-deal departure would be a “grotesque act of national self-harm”.

Speaking to Ridge, he pointed to new polling which shows the government could lose a series of seats to the Lib Dems in an election.

“I can tell you that large numbers of Conservatives will not vote for a no-deal Brexit. They will vote for whatever party appears to stand behind a European policy,” he said.

“Large numbers of Conservatives, friends of mine, colleagues of mine, approach me every day asserting the fact that they will vote for Britain’s national self-interest, despite the loyalty they feel to the Conservative party.”

Heseltine was similarly scathing about Johnson’s government, and Cummings’ central and increasingly publicised role in it.

“The economy is stalled, inflation is rising and the pound is in serious difficulties and threatens to get worse, investment is on hold,” he said. “There is an atmosphere of total indecision and ineffectiveness at the heart of government. Because, let’s be frank, there is no parliamentary majority for what this government is threatening to do.

“Because this government is completely obsessed with the preposterous idea that we should leave Europe without a deal, the whole of the agenda for running this country, for modernising this country, is on hold.”

Heseltine said Cummings sees himself as a revolutionary. “We’ve got this guy, who is now in direct contact with the British media, briefing them on policies, scathingly attacking members of the House of Commons, and parading himself as the mastermind behind the government. That is an intolerable position for democracy,” he said.

“It is absolutely central that parliament should be able to call to account people who represent them as ministers, and at the the moment we’re now being told by a particular figure, who’s proud of it, that he’s more or less running the show.”

Speaking later on the same show, Malthouse, who served as deputy London mayor under Johnson, dismissed the criticism. “Obviously, there’s a lot of hyperbole being thrown about as we approach the date of 31 October,” he said.

“In the end even people like Lord Heseltine, great figures from the past, who have never quite reconciled themselves to the idea that we’re going to leave the European Union, are going to have to focus on the fact that that’s what the British people commanded us to do, and that’s what the government is committing to do at the end of October.”

Malthouse said there was still a huge amount of work to be done on no-deal preparations, but that ministers were planning carefully. “Alongside that, obviously, profoundly the government is trying to get a deal,” he said. “And we want the Europeans to recognise that a deal is in both of our interests, that they need to start talking to us about what that might look like.”

• This article was amended on 11 and 13 August 2019. An earlier version said Kit Malthouse accused Michael Heseltine of being among ageing Conservative figures who had “never quite reconciled themselves to the idea” of Brexit. Further it said that Betty Boothroyd is a Labour peer. In fact she is a crossbench peer. This has been corrected.