Roll up, roll up Johnny Mercer
Tory MP Johnny Mercer says his own party’s government is a “shitshow” and his former self would not vote Conservative.
In a revelatory interview the politician, who served 12 years in the British Army, attacked the government’s handling of Brexit and said he had “singularly failed” in the objectives he set on entering parliament.
Speaking to The House magazine the backbencher has already drawn comment from his parliamentary colleagues.
Labour shadow cabinet member Andrew Gwynne goaded Mercer on Twitter: “Wonder if he’s sent a letter to the 1922 then?” The committee which, if it receives a threshold of letters from Tory MPs, can trigger a no confidence vote in the party’s leadership.
Mercer was defended by Tory MP Lucy Allen on the social media platform: “Got a lot of time for Johnny Mercer like me, he got into parliament the hard way – that gives you a different perspective and much needed independence from Party machine – he also has courage.”
Got a lot of time for @JohnnyMercerUK like me, he got into parliament the hard way – that gives you a different perspective and much needed independence from Party machine – he also has courage. https://t.co/nf4cFrX6fi
— Lucy Allan MP (@lucyallan) October 18, 2018
The former Army captain also said his party is “openly ridiculed” and that Theresa May’s Chequers Brexit deal was a “”classic professional politician’s answer” pleasing nobody. He implied the Prime Minister was a technocrat and that the Conservatives have nothing to offer the electorate beyond Brexit.
This relates to his assessment he has not succeeded in achieving his goals for entering parliament – to improve mental health provision and address the plight of veterans and their families.
He said: “I wouldn’t go and vote.
“There’s no doubt about it that my set of values and ethos, I was comfortable that it was aligned with the Conservative Party. I’m not as comfortable that that’s the case anymore.
“If the situation was like it is now, I can safely say there would be absolutely no chance that I would try and be a member of parliament.
“But when you go home from here on a Thursday and go for a run across Dartmoor or whatever, and you’re stripped to your core being, I mean, yeah, you realise it’s a shitshow.
On Theresa May he said: “The party will never really change until you have somebody who is leading the party who has won a seat and knows what it’s like to go out every weekend and advocate for what you just voted for that week.
“I sat down with a colleague the other day and I was stunned when they told me she had never been canvassing.
“I’m not going to sit at the back of the bus and watch it head towards the edge of the cliff. I’m not going to let us go down without a serious shitfight.”
Mercer won his constituency, Plymouth Moor View, from Labour in 2015 and consolidated his position in the 2017 snap election with a majority of more than 5,000.
