Conservatives suspend 2 EU lawmakers over Brexit vote

BRUSSELS: Britain’s ruling Conservatives barred two of their own lawmakers in the European Parliament after they broke the party whip and voted for a motion demanding London do more to meet EU demands in Brexit talks.

“Julie Girling and ... Richard Ashworth were suspended from the Conservative Party last night after supporting a resolution ... to block Brexit talks moving forward,” the party said on Sunday in a statement that highlighted divisions over Britain’s move to quit the European Union in 18 months.

Prime Minister Theresa May supported the move. A government source said the two had behaved “totally irresponsibly”. “They left the party no choice but to act,” Ashley Fox, leader of the 20-strong group, said in the statement, describing the decision of Ashworth and Girling, a former group leader and chief whip respectively, as “extremely regrettable”.

Girling, who like Ashworth and Fox opposed Brexit during last year’s referendum, defended her decision to vote with the overwhelming majority in Strasbourg on Tuesday on a non-binding resolution which urged EU leaders not to accept London’s request for talks on post-Brexit trade without further concessions. “I did not vote to prevent trade talks,” she said, noting she called for such negotiations. However, she said in a statement that it was “patently obvious” that the European Union’s test of “sufficient progress” on key divorce issues were not yet met.