If Boris is in, Wollaston's out

Totnes MP may quit Tories if BJ becomes PM

Leading Devon Conservative MP Dr Sarah Wollaston says she's likely to leave the party if Boris Johnson takes over from Theresa May.

The Tories have spent the weekend, if not most of the past week, month and year, in open warfare over the UK's negotiations to leave the EU. They've been going hammer and tongs at one another particularly since the PM's botched Chequers plan, in which a key element involved the country staying in a customs union for products, mainly in order to prevent a hard border in Ireland. That led to two key Brexit figures, David Davis and Boris Johnson, resigning their cabinet posts. Mr Johnson has since written a series of incendiary articles, in between announcing a divorce from his wife of 25 years and watching the test match. In the Mail on Sunday, he said the Chequers deal was "pathetic" and "feeble" and that the prime minister had: "wrapped a suicide vest" around the UK constitution and handed the detonator" to Brussels.

Dr Wollaston, who chairs the all-parliamentary health committee, later told the BBC that she doesn't think Mr Johnson is fit to lead the country, but if he manoeuvred himself into that position, which many commentators believe to be his underlying aim, she'd walk away from the Tories.

The Totnes MP is a committed remainer, pointing out this week on Twitter that before the 2016 EU referendum, the UK was the fastest-growing EU economy, but is now one from the bottom, with only Italy more languid. She says: "No wonder the public are booing Boris. What an absolute Brexit shambles."