Anna Soubry last night provoked fury after she suggested that Brexit-supporting Tory MPs have mental health issues
Anna Soubry last night provoked fury after she suggested that Brexit-supporting Tory MPs have mental health issues.
The diehard Remainer launched a scathing attack on her ‘hard Brexiteer’ colleagues, saying they would ‘destroy’ the party and the Prime Minister to get the deal with Brussels they want.
The former minister claimed that 35 of her fellow Tories had been ‘banging on about Europe’ for decades in a way that was ‘not particularly good for their mental health’.
In provocative remarks in the Commons, she called on the Government to ‘get a grip’.
She said: ‘This madness has to stop. Now if we were in the middle of the summer I might say that it was an over-exposure to a hot sun that seems to have caused a collective outbreak in the Government of a form of madness.
‘Their inability to grasp Brexit and do the right thing frankly is now at a point where, as I say, it has got to stop.’
She added: ‘In my party, my Government believes that somehow they can “manage” the 35 hard Brexiteers, who for decades have been banging on about Europe in a way that I think is not, at times, particularly good for their mental health – and they think they can “manage” them. They cannot be managed.
‘Even if they were given what they wanted today, they would complain that it had not been done yesterday.
‘For many of them it is a battle to the death, and they will not hesitate to destroy this party or our Prime Minister to get what they want.
‘They can see the prize and they will be damned if anybody is going to get in their way. The Government needs to wake up to that reality.’
Miss Soubry went on to call for a second referendum because the country had been ‘lied to’ in the referendum campaign with numerous ‘cons and tricks’ being played.
Last night a Brexit-supporting Tory MP said: ‘Anna Soubry is regarded by the parliamentary party, to a man and woman, as completely barking, so it is rich that she would say that.’
The row came as Theresa May slapped down one of her ministers after he suggested that Brexit was in doubt following the leaking of a gloomy report by civil servants.
Justice minister Phillip Lee tweeted that if the figures in the disputed assessment were ‘anywhere near right’, there should be a ‘serious question over whether a government could legitimately lead a country along a path that the evidence and rational consideration indicate would be damaging’.
The papers prepared by civil servants from across Whitehall suggested that even with a comprehensive trade deal UK growth would be down by 5 per cent over the next 15 years.
A Government spokesman said: ‘[Dr Lee] has been spoken to by the Chief Whip and been reminded it is best to air views in private. It is the fact that he aired it in public. That it was speculating about a leaked document in public.’
The former minister claimed that 35 of her fellow Tories had been ‘banging on about Europe’ for decades in a way that was ‘not particularly good for their mental health’
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen last night called on Dr Lee to resign as he accused him of seeking to ‘undermine’ the Government from within.
He said: ‘The Chief Whip needs to impose collective responsibility discipline across the Government.
‘If he [Dr Lee] wants to espouse his own views then he should be on the backbenches where he would be free to do so.’
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘He knows whether these figures are right does he? There is a big “if” in there. This report is from the same people that have produced every failed report so far.’
Yesterday ministers were forced into agreeing to release the document after coming under parliamentary pressure from Labour and critics on the Tory benches.
But the analysis will be made available only to MPs and will not be published more widely.