Thread by @lewis_goodall

And now to the Gaukeward squad. Applause as (former Tory MPs) @AlistairBurtUK @DavidGauke and Dominic Grieve enter the room.

Grieve: “All of us want the best for the Conservative party and also want what is best for the country. Being a party loyalist means putting country before party. And we are 30 days away from a potentially catastrophic event in our country’s history.”

Grieve: “There may be many people in this country who can make a no deal transition. But as the yellowhammer papers make clear, it’ll be the vulnerable in our society who will suffer most. That is something that we as Conservatives cannot neglect.”

Grieve: “some call the Benn Act the ‘surrender act’; I call it the ‘safeguarding act’”

Grieve: “I’m concerned some people seem to want a kind of constitutional anarchy...if you start to take a sledgehammer to the constitution’s structure in a cavalier way, you will smash it into pieces and you won’t be able to put it back together again.” #cpc19

Grieve getting heckled by some in the audience.

Grieve: “Why should people vote for us as a party which safeguards the constitution if we’re happy to throw it in the waste paper basket when the ends justify the means?” #CPC19

Grieve says second referendum only way out of the impasse. Says it’s only way to restore unity to the Conservative Party.

Where have we heard that before...

Grieve: “Whatever seats we think we may gain somewhere in the north of England, I can tell you that for many people and seats in middle England from which we’ve traditionally drawn our support, many think we and common sense have parted company.”

It’s all kicking off

.@AlistairBurtUK reminds the audience he’s been a Tory for fifty years and was even PPS to Iain Duncan Smith as leader: “I don’t need any lessons on loyalty from anybody about what to do for the Conservative Party in the future.”

Burt: “one of the big mistakes in 2016 is to think it was all about us...the idea that because they wanted to sell us cars and Prosecco they would give us exactly what we wanted. It wasn’t true then it isn’t true now.”

Burt: “Bringing into office the Vote Leave campaign just hasn’t worked. To produce confrontation and division may win you a referendum but it doesn’t get people on your side in Parliament.”

The usually mild-mannered Burt seems quite angry: “the strategy of fighting Parliament like you’re fighting a referendum just hasn’t worked.” Clearly has Cummings in his sights.

Burt: “there was an extraordinary survey of Tory members this summer....would they worry if the union fell apart so long as we got Brexit? 65% said no. We have collectively made irrational decisions because of the obsession with leaving the EU.”

Burt: “I’m British through and through. The thought of the union being damage really concerns me.”

Burt: “When we began we were in the majority. I stood in 1983 with a manifesto saying we’d stay in the EEC. I’ve seen the change in the Conservative Party, I’ve lost the argument, but I see the obsession with Europe to the point of irrationality, that it’s narrowing us.”

Burt: “I’ve compromised. I wish my colleagues in the cabinet now would compromise just a little bit to get Brexit over the line.”

Gauke: “I entered politics as a sceptic of the European project. I remain a sceptic...I don’t whistle ode to joy in the shower. And I don’t look good wearing a beret.”

Gauke: “but the idea that we should leave without a deal would leave me with horror.

The idea we leave on 31st Oct and then on 1st Nov talk about our hospital building programme is complete nonsense. The politics of this country will then be dominated by need for a new deal.”

Gauke: “second myth is to say all no deal effects can be mitigated by preparation.

You cannot prepare your way out of massive new tariffs. You cannot if you’re a business which uses JIT supply chains, prepare for a world where you don’t have them any more.”

Gauke: “third myth is that the threat of no deal gives the UK huge negotiating leverage.

The British govt has been challenge time and again for a solution to the Irish border and we simply have not been able to do so. And no amount of leverage is going to solve that.”

.@DavidGauke quietly destroying virtually every tenet of govt Brexit policy right now in Manchester. Not much to see here.

Gauke: “fourth myth is there was a democratic imperative for no deal. Frankly that was not what was put to the British people in 2016.”

Gauke: “we have let the British people down because we have failed to articulate that Brexit is complex, no-one has ever properly articulated the trade offs.”

Gauke says present government Brexit policy is going to “narrow the base of support of the Conservative Party. We will lose support from traditional long standing Conservatives, particularly in London and the South East.”

Gauke: “in order to maintain support from voters who haven’t traditionally supported us means we will be dragged into a very different direction...we have a strategy of nursing grieveances, stoking anger. It means our politics becomes debased.“

.@DavidGauke says that if the Tory Party keeps going the way it’s going, going down a route of “confrontation” and “division” that it will “soon less be the party of Churchill and more the party of Trump.”

Wow.

David Willets says he’s endorsing the idea of another referendum. Says the single market has been one of the biggest triumphs of British power and diplomacy in Conservative history.

Dominic Grieve says he’s found the last three years “amongst the most tiring and wearying of my life.”

“It’s your fault!” Comes the reply from the crowd, followed by “diddums!”

Voice of concerned Tory member. Says he’s gone out and knocked on doors for the Tory Party all his adult life. But doesn’t know what to do if there’s an election where the party campaigns on no deal.

.@AlistairBurtUK: “I dealt with dilemma [having to campaign for a no deal Brexit] by deciding not to stand again.”

.@AlistairBurtUK: “most EU regulations which affect us are British made...The Trump trade deal? You just wait for it. Trump’s eyes will light up. It’ll be a deal which suits them.”

Burt is a former senior minister at the Foreign Office.

Grieve: “I guarantee you if enough people in Scotland want another independence referendum there will be another referendum. We as a party are going the right way about making sure it will happen the way we are going.”

Dominic Grieve says the Prime Minister is responsible for encouraging the decline in debate and increase in use of terms such as “traitor” etc.