Borders Tories toe the line in fracking vote

Labour’s motion to force a vote on a bill to ban fracking was defeated, despite complete confusion in the Tory camp over whether it was being treated as a confidence vote in Liz Truss’ collapsing leadership.

There were reports of Conservative backbenchers being “manhandled” and “bullied” into the “No” lobby, and conflicting reports of whether or not the party’s whips had resigned following the alleged stramash.

Borders MPs John Lamont and David Mundell both voted with the government, even though several high-ranking Tories, including Scottish Secretary Alister Jack, elected not to vote.

The Southern asked both Mr Lamont and Mr Mundell why they both voted against what could have seen the end of the ecologically unpopular method of extracting gas and oil from shale rock, a practice that was stopped in 2019 after an outcry from environmental groups.

Mr Lamont has elected not to answer, but Mr Mundell said: “I voted with the government on Wednesday because the motion put down by the Labour Party was in fact a procedural attempt by the Opposition to hijack the Order Paper and play political games with legislation. The issue of fracking is, of course, also a matter devolved to the Scottish Parliament.”

In Scotland, fracking is a devolved matter, and there has been a ban since 2017.

A few days is now a lifetime in politics … and Ms Truss resigned at the end of last week, a day after sacking Kwasi Kwarteng for signing off on the mini-budget which crashed the economy.

Amid calls from the opposition parties for an immediate general election, the Tories are intent on installing a new leader instead, with former Chancellor Rishi Sunak leading the race.

Speaking ahead of Boris Johnson’s decision not to stand for a second time, Mr Mundell was clear on who he didn’t want to be Prime Minister, but less clear on who he would be supporting.

He said: “Nominations are not due to close until Monday and I will decide between the candidates once it is confirmed who they are. I will not, however, be supporting Mr Johnson.”

Mr Lamont, on the other hand, took to Twitter to continue his support for Penny Mordaunt, the candidate he supported in the last leader election, just a couple of months ago.

He said he hoped that she would reach the 100 nominations required.

He said: “My clear hope is that she would then become leader and Prime Minister.

“She has the capacity not only to unite the country and unite the party, but really move us forward. She can bring us all together.

"She can bring together all the different talents and skills that the Conservative Party has into the cabinet, into the government and drive our country forward.

"I think over the last weeks and months, the feeling is that the party is a bit divided, the government’s been divided and it’s not been focused on the priorities of the country, and crucially we’ve not been focused on delivering the 2019 manifesto, which we’re all elected on.”

However, he could be backing a losing horse once again. Ms Mordaunt is currently well short of the 100 supporters she needs by 2pm today. If she doesn’t reach that number, Mr Sunak could be Prime Minister by this afternoon.