OUSTED North Yorkshire MP Anne McIntosh has called for a change to party selection rules, in the hope she can stand again as a Conservative.

Earlier this month, the Thirsk and Malton MP – who is Yorkshire’s only female Conservative MP – lost a party ballot on her reselection but vowed to fight on in her seat in the next General Election. She currently has a majority of 11,281.

Miss McIntosh said today that she would accept the deselection decision if an open primary were called to select the Conservative candidate - polling all residents, rather than just party members.

She said she was confident that the “best way forward and the one that will gain the overwhelming support of the members of the association” was to select the Conservative candidate by an open primary, which would enable all voters in the constituency to have a say.

She said: “If it was a genuine open primary whereby all those who are registered and entitled to vote living in Thirsk, Malton and Filey were I submitted to that process were I not to get through then I would accept the result of that process.”

Miss McIntosh said she believed the process which saw her deselected was flawed, and said there were a number of reasons she wanted to fight on.

She said: “The fact the I represented and faithfully served 77,000 constituents the fact that after six-and-a-half week, almost seven week campaign I was retained with over 52.7 per cent share of the vote majority of 11,000 over my nearest rival.

“The fact that we worked together as a fantastic team, that’s what I want to recapture and the opportunity to submit my record to the electorate that elected me in 2010 and it’s for the electorate to dismiss me.”