The Conservative MP Damian Green, the former de facto deputy prime minister, has been rejected as the party’s candidate for the newly created Weald of Kent constituency.
Despite having served in the House of Commons since 1997, Green was deselected, fuelling speculation that grassroots campaigners are targeting those seen as responsible for Boris Johnson’s exit from No 10.
Green said he was “disappointed” at the news, and was “now thinking about what to do next and how I can best continue to work” for those in his current Ashford constituency and to support the government.
David Campbell Bannerman, the chairman of the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO), which plans to “restore democracy” within the party, said: “There is now hard evidence MPs allegedly associated with bringing down Boris are being directly held to account and punished by members.”
The organisation, led by Brexiters and Johnson loyalists, takes issue with Rishi Sunak having been elevated to No 10 without a membership vote because no other candidate met the high threshold of nominations needed.
But the CDO’s vice-president, Lord Greenhalgh, denied that Green’s deselection was linked to the issue. He called Green “a force for good for decades” and added: “This had nothing to do with Boris Johnson, but more to do with a system of selection/deselection of MPs that needs fundamental reform.”
Green has chaired the One Nation caucus of centrist Conservative MPs and was Theresa May’s effective number two when he served as first secretary of state during her tumultuous premiership. Last month, he took over as acting chair of the Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee.
While Green was rejected by his local executive, he could still put his name forward when the selection of an MP goes to the wider constituency membership.
He was sacked as a minister in 2017 after allegations surfaced about pornography on his parliamentary computers. It was found that he had breached the ministerial code by making “inaccurate and misleading statements” suggesting he was unaware of any indecent material.
In his resignation letter, Green said that while he “did not download or view pornography on my parliamentary computers”, he “should have been clear in my press statements that police lawyers talked to my lawyers” about it in 2008 and then in a subsequent phone call in 2013.
