Defensive about curtailed debate - witty character seeing Conservative off (9)
I believe the answer is:
rearguard
'defensive' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'about curtailed debate witty character seeing conservative off' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'about' could be 'rea' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'rea' is present in the answer.
'character' could be 'u' and 'u' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for rearguard that I've seen before include "Defensive" , "Troops protecting back of military formation" , "Plaza-Toro's place" , "conservative faction" , "conservative element" .)