On 3 September 2019 he proposed the Letwin motion upon the Benn bill under Standing Order No. 24, and then, with 20 other rebel Conservative MPs, voted against the Conservative government of Boris Johnson. The rebel MPs voted for the Letwin motion to take control of parliamentary business from the government, for the purpose of introducing a bill which would prevent the Prime Minister's policy of allowing the United Kingdom to leave the EU without a deal on 31 October. The bill thus introduced the next day became the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019. Subsequently, all 21 were advised that they had lost the Conservative whip, expelling them as Conservative MPs and requiring them to sit as independents. If Letwin had decided to stand for re-election in a future election the party would have blocked him as a Conservative candidate, but that was immaterial for him, as he had already promised in August to stand down. As an independent MP After his summary ejection from the Conservative parliamentary party, Letwin sat as an independent. On 19 October 2019, he tabled an amendment to the Government business of the 'super Saturday' session. His amendment passed by 322 to 306 votes. The government then deferred the vote it had planned for that day on the actual deal itself. His amendment attracted the support of ten former Conservative and ten Democratic Unionist Party members, while the government attracted the votes of six Labour MPs and seventeen independents. Eight Labour MPs, five Conservatives and one independent member did not vote on the Letwin motion. The following day, The Sunday Telegraph published a declaration from an anonymous Conservative source that Letwin's motion had been masterminded by Lord Pannick, the barrister who had represented Gina Miller in her actions against the Johnson ministry's Brexit policy. After announcing that he would not stand in the 2019 general election, Letwin was succeeded as the Conservative candidate for Dorset West by Chris Loder, who was subsequently elected as the seat's MP. Public sector spending Letwin maintained in June 2017 that the public is willing to increase taxes carefully for large numbers of people to pay for improved public services. Letwin said, "It may well be, in one way or another, a large number of people will have to pay a little more tax if we are going to maintain the trend towards reduced deficits and yet spend