Staff ReporterEx-Tory Education Secretary Justine Greening who was binned from the party’s Parliamentary group was told of the decision by voicemail.
She said she wasn’t called by the Prime Minister, said how the rebels had been dealt with said more “about the state of the Conservative Party than it does about me”.
Ms Greening was one of the 21 Tory MPs who were stripped of the Tory whip this week after voting for the bill in Parliament which blocks a no-deal Brexit.
But the PM has said that he’d rather “die in a ditch ” rather than obey the law which demands he ask for an extension in negotiations if he hasn’t got an agreement by October 19.
The now-independent MP said: “I was on my way home on the District Line and I had a call from the Chief Whip.
“I wasn’t able to take it on the Tube so he simply left a voicemail.”
Asked by Sophy Ridge on Sky what the message said she added: “He just informed me that the whip was being withdrawn.
“I think it might have been polite after 14 years to try to call me back perhaps a second time but the bottom line, Sophy, is I think we know where we are and I am very clear what my role is and my role is to represent my community in Parliament and that’s what I did that day.
Ms Greening added: “I think it says an awful lot more I guess about the state of the Conservative party than it does about me and I think in a way I have served my community and my country for 14 years and I think it’s a shame that the whip has been withdrawn for doing the simple thing of representing my community in Parliament.
“I’m not in control of how the Conservative leadership takes its decisions, I think it was a self-defeating move to withdraw the whip and I think it will backfire but ultimately those are questions for Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson more than they are for me.”
