Crossword Genius

Disposes of Tories with hesitant utterances about Europe (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

consumes

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'disposes of' is the definition.

'tories with hesitant utterances about europe' is the wordplay.
'tories' becomes 'cons' (short for Conservatives).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'hesitant utterances' becomes 'ums' ('um' is said when hesitating).
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'europe' becomes 'e' (this could be a standard abbreviation of which I'm unaware).
'ums' going around 'e' is 'umes'.
'cons'+'umes'='CONSUMES'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for consumes that I've seen before include "Eats" , "Gobbles" .)

I've seen this clue in The Everyman puzzle in The Observer.
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