Philip Hammond, the former Chancellor turned leading advocate of what Downing Street are terming “the Surrender Bill”, took to the airwaves this morning to whine about the possibility of being deselected for the mere misdemeanour of siding against the Government in an effective confidence vote. He made it clear that he thinks he is undeselectable…

“I don’t believe they [have the power to stop me standing], and there would be the fight of a lifetime if they tried to.” “A legal fight if necessary?” “Possibly.”

Unfortunately for Phil there are plenty of precedents in his party for senior MPs to be deselected by the central party. in 2005, Michael Howard controversially deselected former Deputy Party Chairman Howard Flight for harming the Tories’ electoral prospects. Hammond clearly doesn’t know the party rules as well as he thinks he does. Adrian Hilton took the party to court in a not dissimilar case and lost. The Conservative Party rules are very clear; the central party has the final say…

Since I’m the expert on this (empirically and [with the only copy of a High Court judgment] legally): if a local assoc acquiesces to CCHQ (cf Howard Flight, 2005), the candidate is sacked. If an assoc resists, the candidate is still sacked and so is the association (cf me, 2005). https://t.co/PCjOXTkzCv — Adrian Hilton (@Adrian_Hilton) September 3, 2019

If Hammond is one of a dozen or so Tories who vote to neuter their Government and put a Marxist in Downing Street, the rules are clear. They’re out…

UPDATE: Runnymede and Weybridge is selecting a new candidate.