Ex-whip Alistair Carmichael: I’ve never seen anything like fracking vote chaos

A former party whip at Westminster said he had never seen anything like the chaos before the vote that finally cracked the government.

Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael, who was first elected in 2001, was tasked with ensuring colleagues voted with the Conservatives when he was Lib Dem chief whip and deputy chief whip for Tory PM David Cameron’s coalition government.

He still speaks regularly to Tory MPs and said their mood was despondent after a tumultuous week that culminated in the resignation of Prime Minister Liz Truss the morning after the Tories plunged into chaos before a vote on a Labour motion on fracking.

Labour MP Chris Bryant claimed some were manhandled through the voting lobby by senior Tories.

Carmichael, who witnessed the commotion, said: “I’ve never seen anything like that before. Politics is important and the decisions you make as an MP matter. If people get hot under the collar about it, that’s not always a bad thing. But that is country miles from what we were seeing last week.

“The mood in the Conservative Party is despondent. It is rudderless. It is a failure of political leadership that has brought us to this point. Not just from Liz Truss. This government and Boris Johnson’s government before it is populated by people who have a colossal sense of entitlement.

“It was their arrogance and hubris that made them think they could bend the markets to their will. As a consequence they may have done permanent and irreparable damage to the British economy.”

Veteran Tory MP Sir Charles Walker gave an interview to the BBC after the fracking vote, during which he said colleagues were concerned about losing their seats and struggling to pay their mortgages. He said: “There is nothing as ex as an ex-MP and a lot of my colleagues are wondering, as many of my constituents are wondering, how they’re going to pay their mortgages if this all comes to an end soon.”

Carmichael said: “I have utterly no sympathy for Conservative MPs worrying about not being able to pay their mortgages. They are entirely the authors of their own misfortune. At a moment like this you would hope their primary interest is the national interest.”