Michael Heseltine last night urged voters to back the Lib Dems in the election to stop Boris Johnson‘s Brexit.
The 86-year-old former deputy prime minister, who served under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, told lifelong Conservative supporters to ‘put the country first’.
Speaking alongside ousted Tories Dominic Grieve, David Gauke and Anne Milton – all standing as Independents – he said voters should back either them or the Lib Dems.
Asked what advice he would give to long-time Tory voters, Lord Heseltine said: ‘I’m telling them to vote for what they believe and what the Conservative Party has stood for all my life and certainly all of theirs – and to put country first.
‘And what I think that means in practical terms is they either vote for the defrocked Conservative candidates, of which we have three excellent examples here, or they vote Lib Dem.’
Lord Michael Heseltine, on stage during an anti-Brexit rally in Parliament Square in London last month, told lifelong Conservative supporters to ‘put the country first’
His comments came six months after he lost the Tory whip for saying he would back the Lib Dems in the European Parliament elections after 68 years in the Conservative Party.
His comments reported in the Mirror last night went further than those he made in May, when he described his decision only as a personal ‘experiment’.
The four politicians addressed hundreds of disaffected voters in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire.
Lord Heseltine told the crowd there was not a ‘shred of truth’ to claims his support for rival candidates would put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street.
He claimed there was no way Mr Corbyn would win an outright majority for his ‘insane’ manifesto and suggested he would not be Labour leader by Christmas.
In excoriating comments, he also said it was a ‘delusion’ that Boris Johnson will ‘get Brexit done’ by January 31 given he has not started talks over a UK-EU trade deal.
Tearing into the leadership, he also warned the Tories’ plans to create a Singapore-style tax haven after Brexit would be ‘wildly unpopular’.
Lord Heseltine was speaking alongside ousted Toriy David Gauke who is standing as an Independent
Lord Heseltine added: ‘Of course there is the great saviour – the ultimate justification – President Trump is on our side.
‘And this most benign of American presidents, whose heart is there across the world to the underprivileged, fighting for his political life in an election period will break the habit of a lifetime and be generous to somebody else.
‘If you believe that, you will believe… Brexit.’
He said Brexiteers ‘never tell you’ what they will do once they have taken back control.
He went on: ‘There is to the more cynical of us another explanation.
‘That they actually know what they want to do would be wildly unpopular in this country because it affects the way we live and work, the way our companies operate.
‘The health and safety, the environmental standards that patiently we have ourselves in Britain helped to create over the last 40 years.
‘And the moment they start dismantling, creating a sort of Singapore this side of the Channel, then the reaction across the Conservative Party will be indelible and irradicable.’
Former ministers Mr Gauke, Mr Grieve and Ms Milton ruled out going back to the Tories in the five-year Parliament if they manage to win their seats
None of them ruled out ever returning to the Tories – and Lord Heseltine said he was still a member.
Former health minister Ms Milton described the prime minister as a ‘spoiled child’ who was forced to call the election because he had ‘thrown his toys out of the pram’ over the timetable for his Brexit deal.
