Conservative lawmaker Nick Boles said on Monday he was resigning from Prime Minister Theresa May’s governing party after his attempt to seek an alternative route forward to break the deadlock in parliament over Brexit was rejected.
The proposal Boles put forward for a so-called Common Market 2.0, or enhanced Norway-style deal which would include membership of the EU’s single market as well as a customs arrangement with the EU, lost by 282 votes to 261.
“I have given everything to an attempt to find a compromise that can take this country out of the European Union while maintaining our economic strength and our political cohesion, I accept I have failed,” Boles told parliament.
“I have failed chiefly because my party refuses to compromise, I regret therefore to announce that I can no longer sit for this party.”
Boles later said on Twitter he would sit as an “Independent Progressive Conservative.”