The Executive of the Conservative Group for Europe regrets and condemns the vote of ‘No Confidence’ by the Beaconsfield Conservative Association in its MP, Dominic Grieve. We believe our Chairman, Mr Grieve, to be a distinguished and honourable MP who has served his country, constituency and Party with distinction. He is a committed and patriotic Conservative in the mainstream of the traditions of the Party. We strongly support his work to ensure that arrangements for Brexit command the full-hearted support of Parliament and fully understand his determination that the public should be afforded the opportunity to pass judgement on those arrangements. 

We are concerned that attempts to deselect Dominic Grieve and other pro-European Conservatives have been orchestrated by external forces and, if implemented, would represent a move towards intolerance and sectarianism in the Conservative Party which are both wrong and liable to make our Party unelectable. We are dismayed by the consistent failure of the Party leadership to defend our Party from entryism by former UKIP candidates and activists and call upon the Party Chairman to take steps to defend Mr Grieve and the internationalist traditions of the Conservative Party.