Tories hit by new defections and slump in opinion polls as party divide widens

The bitter fallout from Brexit is threatening to break the Tory party apart, as a Europhile former cabinet minister Stephen Dorrell on Sunday announces he is defecting to the independent MPs’ group Change UK, and a new opinion poll shows Conservative support plummeting to a five-year low as anti-EU parties surge. Writing in Sunday’s Observer, Dorrell, who was health secretary under John Major, says he can no longer continue in a party that “has fallen progressively under the influence of an English nationalist outlook” and turned its back on the traditions of many of its greatest former leaders. Arguing that neither the Conservatives nor Labour now represent mainstream opinion in the UK, Dorrell says that the current two-party system no longer serves the interests of the electorate. He writes: “I shall continue to describe myself, as I always have, as a liberal Conservative but I shall do so in future as a supporter of Change UK – The Independent Group, which I believe has become the natural home of those who regard themselves, as I do, as the heirs of Disraeli, Churchill, Macmillan and Heath.”