BORIS Johnson has upped the ante with Tory rebels, making clear if they vote with Labour in an expected parliamentary move this week to block a no-deal Brexit, they will end their careers as Conservative MPs.
Party managers have warned any rebel backbencher siding with Jeremy Corbyn against the Prime Minister would have the whip withdrawn and not be able to stand as a Tory candidate in a snap general election.
The move came as a planned meeting for today between Mr Johnson and senior Conservative rebels was called off amid acrimony.
Ex-Cabinet ministers Philip Hammond, the former Chancellor, Dominic Grieve, the former Attorney General, and David Gauke, the former Justice Secretary, were due to have a meeting on Monday with the Prime Minister in Downing St to talk through their differences.
But yesterday evening Government sources said the meeting, involving Mr Gauke had been cancelled due to “diary issues”; a one-to-one meeting with Mr Hammond was offered.
In response, the former Chancellor turned down the PM’s offer with sources close to the rebel group branding Mr Johnson “discourteous” for cancelling the meeting with a wider group of colleagues.
However, one senior Government source delivered a blunt message to the rebels, saying: “The whips are telling Conservative MPs today a very simple message: if they fail to vote with the Government on Tuesday they will be destroying its negotiating position and handing control of Parliament to Jeremy Corbyn.”
He added: “Any Conservative MP who does this will have the whip withdrawn and will not stand as a Conservative candidate in an election.”
Mr Gauke on Sunday made clear he would be prepared to lose the party whip to defend what he regarded as being in the “national interest”.
At the weekend, Mr Johnson threw down a challenge to some of his colleagues, saying: “The fundamental choice is this: are you going to side with Jeremy Corbyn and those who want to cancel the referendum? Are you going to side with those who want to scrub the democratic verdict of the people and plunge this country into chaos?
“Or are you going to side with those of us who want to get on, deliver on the mandate of the people and focus with absolute, laser-like precision on the domestic agenda? That’s the choice.”
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It was thought as many as 20 Tory MPs could rebel in this week’s parliamentary showdown. But they no wonder run the risk of losing the whip and being discounted as party candidates in any snap election.
A Downing St source made clear: “All options for party management are under consideration.”
But Mr Hammond claimed removing the whip would be “staggeringly hypocritical” since “eight members of the current Cabinet have defied the party whip this year”.
Mr Gauke, talking to Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, made clear he would be willing to leave the Conservative Party to stop a no-deal outcome.
"Sometimes there is a point where... you have to judge between your own personal interests and the national interest. And the national interest has to come first.” However, he made clear he hoped it would not come to that and wiser heads would prevail.
Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office Minister in charge of the Government’s no-deal contingency planning, confidently predicted a “majority of MPs” would back the PM.
“Because we know he is making progress with our European friends and allies in attempting to secure a deal and I don’t believe…people will want to erect a roadblock in his way. We all want to leave with a deal and we know as a result of the conversations that the PM has had with Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel that the Withdrawal Agreement, which they had said was a block of marble that could not be altered is now capable of being changed,” he added
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