A FORMER Conservative councillor who left the party last year has just joined the Liberal Democrats instead.

Cllr Mark Titterington, who represents Holmer Green, announced in September 2019 he had resigned from the Tories, and was sitting as an independent on Chiltern District Council - and then Buckinghamshire Council - until May 1.

Announcing his move to the Chiltern Liberal Democrats on their website, he said: "We are living in a time of profound social, economic, and environmental change which is impacting upon the lives of everyone.

"To have embarked therefore on the folly of Brexit in such times, and without anywhere near enough preparation in the run up to and following the 2016 referendum, was reckless in the extreme. The fact that this was done to solve a mainly internal problem in the Conservative party was doubly irresponsible.

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"It was for this reason, and the continuing failure to face reality and act with pragmatism in the negotiations with the European Union, which led me to resign from the Party.

"The shameful scenes in the House of Commons at that time also made clear to me that I no longer shared the values of the party or its leadership, (even though there are many former colleagues in the party that I greatly respect and am sorry to have left behind)."

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He added that this encouraged him to look at his own political values - which were "always on the very left of the Conservative Party" - saying he had a "much stronger affinity with progressive social liberalism".