Norris may quit Tories if party turns to the Right

ONE OF the leading Tory moderates, vice chairman and mayoral candidate Steven Norris, today threatened to leave the party if the leadership goes to the Rightwing candidate, Iain Duncan Smith. And he also hinted that he might defect to Labour.

The warning brought to the surface one of the worst Tory nightmares - that a win for either Mr Duncan Smith or the pro-Europe Kenneth Clarke, who yesterday topped the MPs' ballot, might fragment the party. At the same time, bitter Eurosceptic voices from the grass roots said that they would walk out if Mr Clarke won.

Mr Norris was one of the leading supporters of Michael Portillo's leadership challenge, applauding his call for a fundamental rethink and his championing of liberal causes, including gay rights. Asked whether he might quit the party following Mr Portillo's defeat, Mr Norris replied: "That depends on who wins in the end."

When it was put to him that he should accept the democratic verdict of the membership, he retorted: "Goodness, no. My democratic right is to look across all the parties and see which of them most reflects the views that I hold."

Mr Norris, 56, is one of the most prominent and outspoken Tory moderates. He was a well-rated minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major. He maintained a successful business career after leaving the Commons and became the party's candidate for London mayor. Last year, William Hague appointed him as Tory vice chairman with a licence to dissent from the leadership line in order to widen the party's voter appeal.

Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats believe there could be more Tory desertions and, if Mr Duncan Smith becomes leader, several defections to them.

Both Mr Clarke and Mr Duncan Smith launched into immediate action in the campaign for the decisive vote among the party's grass roots members in the autumn.

Mr Duncan Smith flew straight from last night's final round of voting among the MPs by helicopter to Shropshire to meet Tories there.

Mr Clarke was preparing to face the media before hitting the trail nationwide.

This morning he warned that the party must rise above the "zealotry and fanaticism" over Europe that had typified what was wrong with the Tories over the last few years.

Appealing to the rank and file membership to back him for his ability to hammer Labour and win votes on other issues, Mr Clarke told the BBC's Today programme: "If we are perceived as obsessed by Europe, we will get nowhere.

It's no good just representing the one quarter of the population who are zealot Eurosceptics."

The former chancellor was buoyed by the fact that yesterday's vote propelled him unexpectedly into the lead, with the backing of 59 MPs, against 54 for Mr Duncan Smith and 53 for Mr Portillo.

Mr Portillo, transformed from front- runner to failure and knocked out of the contest, announced that he is to retire from frontline politics. His supporters were predicting that a Clarke-Duncan Smith battle would only polarise the party and fuel the civil war over Europe as never before.

That fear was reinforced by one voice from the grass roots, deputy chairman of the Clwyd South party, John Broughton. He told the BBC: "Should the day dawn that Kenneth Clarke is elected Conservative Party leader, I shall resign because of his pro-European views."

While the 300,000 members prepared for a ballot which will begin in mid-August and conclude with a result on 11 September, the shadow cabinet was under threat of a savage cull - as the price for casting their support early on behind the loser.

Three-quarters of the Tory top team rushed to back Mr Portillo when he set out as runaway favourite in June. There was scathing private criticism from fellow Tories at the time that some, at least, were jumping aboard the bandwagon to further their careers. Today one of the party's most senior figures, former Tory chairman Sir Brian Mawhinney, made that criticism public, declaring: "It leaves the shadow cabinet looking seriously exposed."

Copyright 2001
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.