DAVID Cameron and Theresa May have tried to keep the Conservative Party together just as John Major did before them. Clearly the country is now paying a very heavy price for this.

It is inevitable the Conservative Party will split. Cameron and May have managed to delay that split with referendums and U-turns but this can go on no longer. The party is paralysed by concentrating on its own concerns and government of the country is now adrift and in the hands of the civil service.

All students of history will recognise that the Tory party has now reached one of those points in our nation’s life when it must split in two. This has happened before to the Conservatives and to other parties also. During the repeal of the Corn Laws because of the great debate on free trade the Conservative Party split in two. One half of the party survived and lived to fight another day.

For the good of the country the split must come now. It has been clear for 25 years to any objective bystander not one single party can contain both Ken Clarke and the Euro-sceptics. It was simply perverse of the Conservative MPs to make William Hague stand down only to put forward Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard and David Cameron as candidate for Prime Minister. Clearly over two decades the voters wanted Ken Clarke instead.

The Conservatives failed to win elections in 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2010 as a consequence but still they refused to offer the voters Ken Clarke.

The answer to our country’s problems are to be found in our history.

The Conservative Party must split now and the people must be afforded the chance to decide which one of the two opposing views of Conservatism has a future. The country cannot afford to go on with this any longer.

Nigel Boddy, Darlington