David Gauke: Justice Secretary survives no confidence vote by his constituency membership

Secretary of State for Justice David Gauke
REUTERS
Jacob Jarvis28 June 2019
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

David Gauke has survived a motion of no confidence by his constituency membership.

The Justice Secretary tweeted: "Tonight, I argued that: We should not allow the Party to be taken over by entryists.

"We should be a broad church. No deal would be immensely damaging to the UK.

"I defeated a motion of no confidence 123 to 61. I am grateful to the members of my association for their support."

​Mr Gauke, who represents South West Hertfordshire, is one of the Cabinet's most prominent opponents of a no-deal Brexit.

His survival means Leave.EU failed in its aim to "claim our first Cabinet scalp", with Mr Gauke being put up for "deselection" on Friday evening.

They had tweeted: "Tomorrow we claim our first Cabinet scalp as @DavidGauke is up for deselection in South West Herts.

"With a new leader and potential election, now is the time to make the Conservative party conservative again. If we fail? The Brexit Party wipes the floor with them. Win win!"

Mr Gauke had won strong public support from Cabinet colleagues, including leadership candidate Jeremy Hunt.

Mr Hunt tweeted: "@DavidGauke is an outstanding cabinet colleague and we need him to carry on doing such a great job!"

Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who also stood in the leadership contest, also offered his support.

Mr Javid tweeted: ".@DavidGauke an outstanding colleague and Minister. Has consistently backed Government & manifesto commitments. I hope his local association back him tonight"

Following the defeat. Leave.EU tweeted: "BREAKING David Gauke survives his confidence vote. Can't win them all!

"The Blue Wave rides on... Plenty of other petitions going in. We're just getting started! @CCHQPress"

Pro-Remain Tory former minister Phillip Lee and Conservative former attorney general Dominic Grieve suffered votes of no confidence by their local associations earlier this year.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT