Heidi Allen says Brexit has broken politics and she won't stand as an MP again
29 October 2019, 12:52
The MP for South Cambridgeshire has written to her constituents to say she has become "exhausted by the invasion into my privacy and the nastiness and intimidation that has become commonplace" and won't stand in the next election.
Heidi Allen, who quit the Tories to form Change UK before switching to the Liberal Democrats said: "The Brexit impasse has made business as usual impossible."
She wrote to her constituents, whom she has represented for four and a half years, and told them she loved being their MP but Brexit has "broken" politics, and her belief was the only way to heal the rift was to hold a "confirmatory public vote."
The MP said without a second referendum on Brexit the country would "continue to see the Conservative and Labour parties going round and round in circles, putting themselves ahead of the national interest."
She added: "And while Parliament has been in purgatory, we have legislated for almost nothing, changed almost nothing and improved almost nothing. I became an MP because I wanted to make a difference, but while Brexit continues to captivate Parliament, that just hasn't been possible."
Explaining her reasons for not standing again in her seat, Mrs Allen blamed Brexit and the attention she had received as a prominent Remainer.
She said: "But more than all of that, I am exhausted by the invasion into my privacy and the nastiness and intimidation that has become commonplace. Nobody in any job should have to put up with threats, aggressive emails, being shouted at in the street, sworn at on social media, nor have to install panic alarms at home.
"Of course public scrutiny is to be expected, but lines are all to regularly crossed and the effect is utterly dehumanising.
"In my very first election leaflet I remember writing 'I will always be a person first and a politician second' - I want to stay that way."
