So Farewell Then Nadine Dorries

More than two months ago, she said she was going to resign her seat “with immediate effect”. Now, finally, having last spoken in the Commons well over a year ago, Mid-Bedfordshire Tory MP (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries really is leaving, precipitating a by-election that will happen some time in October. A by-election the Tories are expected to lose. Badly.

Which should worry most sitting Tory MPs, given that Ms Dorries secured almost 60% of the popular vote, and a majority of more than 24,600, in 2019. The only unknown about the upcoming by-election is whether Labour or the Lib Dems will take the seat. For Ms Dorries’ part, she has ensured maximum attention for her resignation letter by publishing it at Mail Online.

And it will not disappoint Dorries watchers. “The offer to continue in my Cabinet role was extended to me by your predecessor, Liz Truss, and I am grateful for your personal phone call on the morning you appointed your cabinet in October, even if I declined to take the call”. Grateful? Not really.

There was more. “Having witnessed first-hand, as Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss were taken down, I decided that the British people had a right to know what was happening in their name. Why is it that we have had five Conservative Prime Ministers since 2010, with not one of the previous four having left office as the result of losing a general election?”

Disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was “taken down”, to use her happy phrase, by his own party, as was his comedy successor Liz Truss. As to the others, Young Dave resigned after screwing up the EU referendum campaign, and Treeza was brought down by her hero Bozo. And the damage of almost losing the 2017 election.

So what’s her explanation? “That is a democratic deficit which the mother of parliaments should be deeply ashamed of and which, as you and I know, is the result of the machinations of a small group of individuals embedded deep at the centre of the party and Downing St”. Wibble, meet Hatstand.

But she’s not finished. “To start with, my investigations focused on the political assassination of Boris Johnson, but as I spoke to more and more people - and I have spoken to a lot of people, from ex-Prime Ministers, Cabinet Ministers both ex and current through all levels of government and Westminster and even journalists - a dark story emerged which grew ever more disturbing with each person I spoke to”. Aaarghh! Jibber!! JIBBER!!! This is total crap. And it gets worse. For her, not Rishi Sunak.

“Attacks from people, led by you, declared open season on myself and the past weeks have resulted in the police having to visit my home and contact me on a number of occasions due to threats to my person”. Remember all her claims of having “four stalkers”? The claims that fell apart when an FOI request revealed she’d named her Lib Dem opponent as one of the four?

After more in that vein, she brings her rant to a close by telling the world “I shall take some comfort from explaining to people exactly how you and your allies achieved this undemocratic upheaval in my book”. Don’t worry about having to shell out for a copy, it’ll be serialised, probably in the Mail.

Meanwhile, observers lined up to pass adverse comment, such as Ian Dunt from the i Paper: “Full regalia of modern Tory batshittery in Dorries resignation later: deep-state conspiracy theory gibberish, preening self-regard, constitutional illiteracy & a refusal to take any responsibility for her actions or those of the [governments] she's served in”.

To which LBC host James O’Brien added “The second most remarkable thing about Dorries is the way her conduct constantly proves her most caustic critics right. (The first is that she ended up in the actual Cabinet.)” and Otto English concluded “In a way Nadine Dorries’ political trajectory embodied all that's been awful about the last 13 years. A vindictive, mean-spirited MP who, despite doing nothing of any worth, and clearly being out of her depth as a minister, was imbued with an immense degree of baseless entitlement”.

But here a problem entered: as Mikey Smith told, “Asked whether she'd actually sent the letter to Rishi Sunak, No10 say: ‘Not to our knowledge’ … They're also unable to confirm whether she's written to the Treasury to formally trigger the resignation process”. Harry says Marvellous.

As to the real beneficiary of Nadine’s Red Mist episode, Chris Bryant observed “Nadine Dorries has just written every Labour leaflet for the next election”. So she has. But any Tory electoral meltdown won’t be her fault.

Yes, at long last, there goes Nadine Dorries …on her way … OUT.

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