Former minister Crispin Blunt, who three years ago revealed he was gay, has been reselected to fight his seat at the next election despite a row among local Tories.
Rank-and-file party members in his Reigate and Banstead constituency voted for him to be the parliamentary candidate in 2015, despite the local party’s top brass refusing to endorse him.
He hailed the "thumping" victory, which saw him reselected by a margin of five to one, but told The Guardian the row had "brought the local party into disrepute".
He called on those who had sparked the ballot to re-consider their position on the executive council of the Reigate and Banstead Conservative Association.
The ballot result, which was announced on Monday afternoon, comes amid claims that some senior Conservatives opposed him standing because of his sexuality and that he had left his wife Victoria, to whom he had been married for nearly 20 years.
At a meeting in September, the executive council of the Reigate and Banstead Conservative Association refused to endorse his automatic readoption as the parliamentary candidate. Facing deselection, Mr Blunt, 53, demanded that this was put to a vote among local members, as permitted under party rules.
The former Army officer, who lost his job as prisons minister in last autumn’s reshuffle, launched an extensive campaign to drum up support from local Conservatives, including a website highlighting backing from David Cameron and other Cabinet ministers.
Reigate and Banstead borough councillor Julian Ellacott, one of his key supporters, said: “Many members are bemused that we ever got to this point, although they welcome the opportunity to have their say.”
On whether Mr Blunt’s admission that he is gay contributed to opposition to him, Mr Ellacott said: “The majority of members say it’s absolutely not an issue for them and has no bearing on Crispin being an MP.”
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Dr Ben Mearns, a former Tory councillor in Reigate, has said he believes the reason the association did not reselect Mr Blunt in September “was based on his sexuality”. Several senior local Conservatives have strongly denied this.
If father-of-two Mr Blunt, who was educated at Wellington College, Sandhurst and Durham, is reselected, it will put into doubt the position of executive council members who voted in secret against his endorsement.
Members of the executive council are believed to have been split over whether to readopt Mr Blunt.
As part of his campaign, Mr Blunt, MP for Reigate since 1997, won the support of, among others, Mr Cameron, Chancellor George Osborne, Education Secretary Michael Gove and Defence Secretary Philip Hammond.
