Strolling past the green where the market town of Grantham is soon to erect a statue of its most famous daughter, William Hemstell admitted to having mixed feelings about the news that the local MP Nick Boles was quitting the party which Margaret Thatcher once led.
“I was very disappointed about his actions on Brexit to be honest but, whatever you think of him, he beat cancer so he’s no slouch,” said the 76-year-old, who believed Boles should have got fully behind the prime minister.
But on the day after Boles dramatically resigned the Conservative whip when his motion designed to keep Britain in the single market failed to gain a majority in parliament, not everyone in Grantham was quite so generous.
“I had faith in him one time but he’s been part of a great betrayal of voters by some MPs at Westminster,” said Anthony Peres, 33, a photographer, satanist (“We’re a diverse bunch”) and Ukip voter in the Lincolnshire constituency that recorded one of the country’s largest votes for Brexit with 60% of voters backing leave.
Among local Tory ranks, the knives have long been out for their MP who, on Monday night, told fellow parliamentarians that the party had “shown itself to be incapable of compromise” and announced that he would continue to sit in the Commons as an independent progressive conservative.
At another level however, the increasingly bitter relations between Boles and his local party might be seen as a reflection of simmering tensions that threaten to split Conservatives across the country.
Phil Sagar, the outgoing chairman of the Grantham and Stamford Conservative Association, painted a picture of Boles as an MP embedded in the “Westminster bubble” who had grown detached from the constituency. Boles had left local members unsure if he would be standing again for the Tories, not least after he…
