Lord Frost ranks his performance on delivering Brexit
Popular Brexiteer and former Boris Johnson ally Lord Frost has been banned from standing as a Conservative candidate at the general election.
In May last year, the former Cabinet minister announced a bid to become a Tory MP, which would have involved him dropping his peerage and leaving the House of Lords.
Conservative HQ previously accepted his bid to join the party’s candidate list, and voiced thanks to them for the opportunity.
Today, however, it has emerged he has been banned from standing in any of the 93 vacant constituencies for the party.
The news, revealed this afternoon by GB News, will raise eyebrows with many pro-Boris and pro-Brexit MPs and party activists, some of whom have been directly asking Lord Frost to stand.
READ MORE: Tories accused of blocking top candidate for not being nice about Rishi Sunak
Lord Frost was a prominent ally of Boris Johnson's (Image: Getty)
When he was approved for the candidate’s list last year, Lord Frost said he was “grateful to the party authorities for accepting my application as a potential Conservative candidate for the House of Commons, the centre of our national political life".
“I have not yet applied for any seat and am considering my next steps. Meanwhile I look forward to campaigning for the party and for Conservative principles in the months to come.”
However his subsequent outspokenness against Rishi Sunak may have landed him in political Siberia.
In January this year, Lord Frost was even warned he may be stripped of the Tory whip, after he was linked to a YouGov poll that made waves when it revealed Labour was on course to sweep to power in the election.
The January poll of a whopping 14,000 voters forecast that the Tories are heading for a 1997-style defeat, with Keir Starmer on course for a 120-seat majority.
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Former MEP David Campbell Bannerman was also blocked from standing for the Tories last year (Image: Getty)
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It was believed that the poll was aimed at bouncing Rishi Sunak into making changes to the Rwanda deportation scheme.
The poll cost £40,000, but the financial backers behind it remained shrouded in mystery.
Lord Frost was told to cough up who was behind the anti-Sunak poll, and warned that if funding came from people linked to Reform UK it could result in him losing the Tory Party whip in the Lords.
He insisted that he was entitled to criticise Rishi Sunak, but the row won’t have helped his chances of securing a safe seat.
Responding to the news, the Conservative Democratic Organisation told the Express that the move is a "punch in the gut" for grassroots activists.
CDO founder Claire Bullivant said: "Lord Frost is a true conservative and often referred to as the 'conscience of the party.' The people love him and to shun him in this way when he has already been such a champion of so much good in our party and for our country, is unacceptable".
"On numerous occasions he has stuck up for the grassroots and we will stick up for him now. We will be emailing our database which includes 14,000 verified conservative party members and asking them to demand CCHQ reconsider this ludicrous decision."
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It’s not the first time a prominent Brexiteer has been blocked from applying for seats.
In July last year the Express revealed that another Boris Johnson supporter, and chairman of the grassroots Conservative Democratic Organisation, David Campbell Bannerman was threatening to take the party to court after being blocked from standing in the election.
While the former MEP had been granted a “comprehensive pass”, allowing him to apply as a candidate in any constituency he likes, it had included a “deferral” which effectively blocked him from standing.
He also revealed that at a meeting at CCHQ, he was asked to “be nicer about Rishi Sunak” in order to continue applying for constituencies.
The Conservatives were approached for comment.
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