Kit Malthouse: Don't pin blame for Brexit chaos on local Tories

While some ministers have found themselves cast into relative obscurity by the Brexit debate, Kit Malthouse planted himself squarely in the middle of it. In January the housing minister brokered a compromise plan formed by an extraordinary coalition of pro-EU and stridently Brexiteer Tories. For a brief period it appeared that the plan could give Theresa May a lifeline in the form of a Brexit plan that might just break the Commons impasse. But the Prime Minister chose not to adopt it as a new negotiating position with the EU. Now, Mr Malthouse, 52, who was a councillor for eight years in Westminster, is concerned that the “unedifying” mess in Westminster could harm the Tories in this week’s local elections