THE UK is close to an elected dictatorship under Boris Johnson, according to former Father of the House Ken Clarke.

Clarke, who was the Conservative MP for Rushcliffe for nearly 50 years and served as chancellor under John Major, lost the Tory whip in September 2019 when he and a number of other Tory rebels voted with the opposition in an effort to stop Boris Johnson’s government from going ahead with a No-Deal Brexit.

The old-style “One Nation” Tory has been publicly critical of Johnson’s hard Brexit, and spoke out against the Prime Minister in the New European this week.

Clarke recalled working in the party at the same time as the likes of Enoch Powell – and said things are worse now than back then.

“My most implacable opponents were Michael Foot and Enoch Powell. We won the day because the likes of Enoch were then in the minority,” he explained.

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“Now that position is reversed. Immigration was, of course, the issue that his modern followers exploited during the referendum campaign. I considered myself to be in the mainstream of the party, and am not pleased that people who think like me – internationalist, outward-looking, progressive – have been marginalised. The party is now more right wing and nationalist than at any time in my lifetime.”

Clarke went on to attack Johnson’s dislike for “constitutional constraints” – saying he gets “angry” when institutions interfere with his plans.

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“As the elected prime minister, he thinks he should not be impeded in these ways,” he said.

“We are now getting dangerously close to the ‘elected dictatorship’ that Lord Hailsham, the former Lord Chancellor, warned us about half a century ago.”