Tory activists who declared no confidence in Dominic Grieve are “completely representative of middle England” and not entryists, a senior figure in the local Conservative Association has said.

Mr Grieve, the Europhile Tory MP, lost a confidence vote in his Beaconsfield constituency on Friday evening by 182 to 131 just hours after he had helped defeat Theresa May’s Brexit deal in the Commons.

The vote prompted an outpouring of support for Mr Grieve from senior Tories like Boris Johnson and party chairman Brandon Lewis who said it had “no real meaning”.

Meanwhile, George Osborne, the former chancellor, said Conservative Party headquarters should immediately move to suspend the local association amid accusations it had been infiltrated by former Ukip members.

But Simon Dudley, the Tory leader of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council and a member of Mr Grieve’s Beaconsfield Constituency Conservative Association, said suspension would “put a meat cleaver” to the Tory party.

Mr Dudley, who was in the room for the confidence vote, said he saw “zero entryism”.