Chief Tory Whip asked MPs to breach voting pairing conventions on Brexit vote

The Guardian : The Conservatives have been forced to admit that their chief whip asked MPs to breach Commons voting conventions in knife-edge Brexit votes on Tuesday, as opposition parties demanded he quit and queried the accuracy of the prime minister’s account of events.

Party sources conceded on Thursday night that Julian Smith had asked several of his own party’s MPs to break pairing arrangements but some had refused to do so, and the only one who did obey the instruction was paired to a Liberal Democrat MP who was on maternity leave.

They admitted that Smith had wanted some MPs to break “short term” pairing arrangements, where a Tory is asked to skip a vote because an opposition member is unable to attend for good reason, but had made an error in asking party chairman Brandon Lewis to vote because he was paired with Jo Swinson – who only recently gave birth.

Labour called for Smith and Lewis to resign, and accused Theresa May of giving the Commons a misleading account of events when she had said at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday that Lewis’s vote “was done in error”.

Ian Lavery, Labour’s chairman, said: “Julian Smith and Brandon Lewis must now resign or be sacked, and Theresa May must apologise for misleading the house.” Jon Trickett, the shadow cabinet office minister, wrote to the cabinet secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, to complain May had breached the ministerial code.