A HAMPSHIRE MP has been effectly expelled from the Conservative party after casting a rebel vote.

This comes as the MP for Romsey and Southampton North, Caroline Nokes, backed a motion to delay Brexit until January 2020.

When asked how Ms Nokes felt after she had the party whip removed on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show, she said: “It is absolutely gutting. It is a seat I won off the Liberal Democrats, that I fought for eight long years to win back for the Tories, so it feels like I have been given a real kick in the teeth.”

Ms Nokes said in a statement to the Advertiser: “I have voted three times in Parliament to leave the EU with a deal, I have personally steered the Immigration Bill - which turns off free movement - through its committee stages and I have consistently respected the result of the referendum.

“I was walking through the voting lobbies with the then Prime Minister, trying to leave the EU, whilst members of the current Government, including the Leader of the House, were in the lobbies with Jeremy Corbyn.

“On Tuesday I was forced to vote against the Government, a decision which has resulted in me - and 20 others - losing the party whip.

“I felt Parliament needed time to scrutinise and debate the current situation. It remains my intention and my hope that the Government will reverse this decision and that I will be the Conservative candidate at the next General Election.”

A spokesperson for Ms Nokes denied she had been sacked from the party and said the removal of the whip from a Member of Parliament means they are "not sitting as a representative of that party".

They added: "This does not affect the membership of the individual. I have clarified this with the Conservative Association who have confirmed that Caroline remains a member of the Conservative Party."

Ms Nokes added in a weekly letter to the Advertiser: “I have always maintained that a red line for me would be any government leading us to a no deal Brexit.

“Over the past few weeks I have had a handful of representations from constituents who have asked me to vote for ‘no deal’ versus hundreds of individual pieces of correspondence from constituents telling me their own personal experiences of how no deal would affect them.

“My constituents’ prosperity, their jobs, their family’s futures are more important to me as the Member of Parliament than keeping the party whip.”

The Advertiser contacted the Romsey and Southampton North Conservative Association, but a response has not been given.