CONSERVATIVE in-fighting over Brexit is intense - but it has not yet involved one of their number being tossed from a bridge into a river.

But in 1977, a now infamous prank saw the future (de-facto) deputy prime minister, Damian Green, suffer that exact fate - while a future government colleague remained on the bridge.

A trip into the Oxford Mail's archives puts the Tory Brexit battle in a new light, with Mr Green sporting a 'badly bruised arm' after being unceremoniously chucked off a Magdalen College bridge, watched by a future remain backing colleague, who was among Oxford students suspended from the Oxford Union.

It was none other than the future attorney general, Dominic Grieve.

However, the author of a Cherwell student newspaper report on the incident, Michael Crick – now a Channel 4 politics correspondent – reportedly believes Mr Grieve only watched on while Mr Green was thrown off the bridge.

Regardless, Mr Green, who resigned from the government in 2017 following allegations involving watching pornography, was deeply unimpressed with the antics.

He said: "It could have been very dangerous - I missed some rusty spikes by about a foot. The water was only a foot deep, with a stone bottom. If I'd landed on my head, I could have been badly concussed."