Frank Field has criticised local Labour party members after he became the latest party MP to lose a confidence vote for siding with the government in key Brexit votes.
The veteran Eurosceptic’s constituency passed a vote of no confidence against him on Friday, after a similar motion against fellow Brexiter Kate Hoey in her Vauxhall seat in London.
Field has hit back, accusing local members of trying to misrepresent his votes in support of the government’s Brexit policies to try to get rid of him.
The no-confidence vote does not carry any official force, but constituency party members could seek a trigger ballot that would have the potential to deselect Field.
Field said his decision to support Theresa May’s plans in defeating an amendment calling for a post-Brexit customs union had been on behalf of “millions of Labour voters, mainly in parts of the country that have long been neglected by the elites, who gave politicians a clear instruction to take the country out of the EU”.
Field is one of four Labour MPs, including John Mann, Graham Stringer and Hoey, who backed the prime minister’s Brexit agenda. Their critics argue that had the Tories lost the vote, which…
