Leading Tories want Heath expelled

Press, 1 June 1989, Page 10

Leading Tories want Heath expelled

NZPA-Reuter London Leading Conservatives demanded the expulsion of the former Prime Minister, Edward Heath, aged 72, from the party for a string of attacks on the Government which deeply embarrassed its European Parliament election campaign. In the space of two days, Mr Heath has accused the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, of “patronising, self-serving hypocrisy,” the Conservative Party chairman, Peter Brook, of lying and the party machine of running a dirty-tricks department.

Mr Heath’s onslaught followed several speeches in which he angered the party by criticising Mrs Thatcher’s disagreement with many European Community policies.

Cabinet Ministers led a chorus of disapproval while two Conservative legislators, Sir William Clark and John Carlisle, urged Mr Heath’s expulsion. v , "He has gone totally

beyond the pale,” Mr Carlisle said. “He is disloyal to his leader, disloyal to his party and disloyal to the British people. Disloyalty should be punished by expulsion.” Party members said Mr Heath’s outbursts were deliberately damaging in the approach to next month’s elections when the Government fears it could lose up to eight seats to the Opposition Labour Party.

Mr Heath led Britain into the Community in 1972 and has since been the guardian of its commitment to membership.

His relations with Mrs Thatcher have been frigid since she seized the party leadership from him in 1975 but he has rarely expressed his feelings so strongly in public. In a speech in Brussels, on Tuesday, Mr Heath said her attitude to the Community was “preposterous and insulting” and he accused her of attacking it to distract attention from her Government’s political difficulties. . “We should beware of

politicians who start to complain about the loss of sovereignty,” Mr Heath said. “What do they really mean? All too often by ‘sovereignty’ they mean their own power.” Mrs Thatcher, who is also in Brussels for the N.A.T.O. summit, reacted mildly and told reporters, “We all know Ted.”

Other members of the Government did not disguise their fury however.

The Education, Minister Kenneth Baker, said, “I can think of no former Prime Minister directing such a string of personally offensive vituperation against his successor.” Mr Heath returned to the attack with a claim that a dirty-tricks department at Conservative Party headquarters was trying to sabotage his campaign by preventing local branches from invit-

ing him to speak. He said party chairman, Peter Brook, was lying when he issued a denial of the claim. Mr Heath was reproached by a former Cabinet Minister, Lord Whitelaw, who said, “As someone who served very closely with Ted, I cannot in any way associate myself with his remarks. Peter Brook would never lie.” The party is angry that Mr Heath is making trouble when the Government is in difficulty over the economy and unpopular privatisations of the water and electricity industries. Labour is trying to turn the election campaign into a referendum on Mrs Thatcher’s decade in power and is placed to become the largest British party in the European Parliament. An opinion poll in “The Times” said Labour could win 40 seats compared with 32 in the last Parliament, while the Conservatives, who had 45 last might win oply