May will attend showdown meeting with Tory rebels

LONDON: Theresa May has confirmed she will attend a showdown meeting with rebellious MPS at the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee on Wednesday.

It means the prime minister will have to speak to and take questions from her backbenchers behind closed doors, with many of them said to be plotting her downfall.

On Tuesday morning she emerged from what several sources later told The Independent was a cabinet meeting punctuated with “feisty” exchanges, during which she agreed ministers would receive weekly updates on her Brexit strategy. It comes after she managed to sidestep a Commons rebellion over her proposals planned for Wednesday, and amid a backlash against critics using unsavoury language about her.

Both Ms May’s aides and sources at the powerful 1922 Committee confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that the prime minister would now be attending the meeting, despite signs in the morning that she would not.

Until now it looked as though Conservative party chair Brandon Lewis would go in her stead, but the prime minister’s decision to go herself suggests a confidence in Downing Street that she can face down her critics.

Once her attendance was announced, a Number 10 source said: “The prime minister is taking the opportunity to talk to her colleagues.”

The last time she attended a 1922 Committee, the meeting was also preceded by rebellious noises from her backbenches, but it ended with supportive MPS banging the desks in a show of solidarity. Aides are unlikely to have agreed to the PM’S attendance had they expected any different from tomorrow. May also survived spirited exchanges with several members of her cabinet on Tuesday morning, with one telling The Independent: “It’s fair to say they were feisty.”

The cabinet ended with Downing Street confirming that ministers would now receive weekly briefings from Brexit secretary Dominic Raab over progress in talks with Brussels. Key figures in the cabinet, including Penny Mordaunt, Esther Mcvey and Andrea Leadsom, have been pushing Ms May to change tack in her approach to the Bexit negotiations, with the weekly briefings now offering a new chance for them to question her more regularly.