In politics, as in love, breaking up is hard to do.

By trying to disavow social conservatives — whose utterances have a habit of bubbling to the surface — PC Leader Patrick Brown has ticked off former allies such as the LifeSiteNews, where he was dubbed a “shape-shifting weasel.”

Brown’s latest effort to put a fresh face on the Progressive Conservatives for 2017 backfired before Christmas, leaving a lingering challenge as he attempts to reposition the party for an election 18 months away.

Standing in the legislature’s media studio the day before politicians left for the winter break, Brown said his party supports the new sex ed curriculum, abortion rights and equal rights for gay parents — and insisted there isn’t a secret social conservative agenda to undo them.

“If your reason for going to Queen’s Park would be to push a divisive social issue, then that would be unwelcome,” he told reporters.

Little did he know, one of his MPPs and co-chair of his leadership campaign was captured in a recording saying the exact opposite the day before. The clip from French-language television network TFO wasn’t released until the following week.

“Social issues are really, really important. We need to form government. Then . . . watch us go!” Rick Nicholls (Chatham-Kent-Essex) said to applause in a meeting with the Canadian Multicultural Care Group and the Canadian Christian Association.

“That will happen. That will happen.”

The split in the party has put Brown in a squeeze, with Liberal and NDP rivals suggesting he can’t be trusted because he won the leadership by courting social conservatives.

“He used those groups to get to where he is and now he’s decided that they’re holding him back so he’s severed ties. . . . It’s a question of integrity,” said deputy premier Deb Matthews.

Now spurned, that wing of the PC party is being stoked to seek revenge at the polls.

“With a few notable exceptions, it may be very difficult for social conservatives to vote for Patrick Brown’s PC Party come the next election,” Jonathon Van Maren wrote on the website of LifeSiteNews, which opposes abortion and Ontario’s updated sex education lessons.

“Liberal politicians like Kathleen Wynne and Justin Trudeau are actually more honest than the weasel-y Brown,” he added.

“While (they) at least campaign openly on their social values — you may disagree with them, but you know what their views are — does anyone really know what Patrick Brown believes?”

Shortly after the remarks from Nicholls were reported, Brown forced his MPP to retract and apologize but it was another in a string of telltale events in the last few months.

They include his flip-flop on supporting the new sex education curriculum during the Scarborough-Rouge River byelection, and the byelection victory of 19-year-old social conservative Sam Oosterhoff in Niagara West-Glanbrook, who beat out party president and former MP Rick Dykstra for the nomination.

“He has a very present problem with social conservatism,” said Matthews, who charged that Brown’s boast his party supported legislation on equal rights for gay parents rings hollow because several of his MPPs skipped the vote.

On the flip side, LifeSiteNew accused Brown of “bullying” social conservative MPPs to avoid the vote — the day before Oosterhoff was sworn in — instead of showing up to vote their conscience.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who will be battling for the anti-government vote, said “Mr. Brown is going to have to explain to the people of Ontario where his party stands, where he stands, where his candidates stand.”

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Brown maintains he is taking the Conservatives — who hold a healthy lead over Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals in public opinion polls — in a clear direction.

“As leader, and as premier, I will lead an Ontario PC party focused on reversing the economic damage of the Wynne Liberals. . . . I will lead an inclusive government where intolerance will have no place,” he said.

Toward that goal, Brown sent a message to would-be Tory MPPs and members of his caucus at Queen’s Park before heading off for Christmas:

“Your private religious views . . . (have) no bearing at Queen’s Park. And frankly, it’s none of the party’s interest, it’s none of the government’s interest. People can have their private religious views, but just know where I stand and what the focus of our party is.”

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