May day for under-fire PM

HONEYMOON: OVER FOR THERESA AS WEAKNESSES OVER BREXIT LAID BARE

Scotland calls for a second independence vote.

British Prime Minister Theresa May sought to rally her party faithful yesterday after a week in which her political honeymoon abruptly ended, laying bare her weaknesses over Brexit.

The Scottish government’s call for a second independence vote has left May fighting on two fronts as she prepares to start the process of leaving the European Union later this month.

She was also forced to drop a planned tax rise after pressure from backbench MPs, revealing how she could become a hostage to factions in her Conservative Party as the complex Brexit negotiations progress.

At a party conference in Cardiff she will seek to regain the initiative, setting out plans to deliver “a brighter future” after exiting the EU.

May’s centre-right Conservatives are ahead by as much as 19 points in some polls, but much of the lead is because of a weak Labour opposition.

And her majority in the House of Commons is slim.

“Theresa May’s position as prime minister is far weaker than the opinion polls suggest,” said Tony Travers, a politics professor at the London School of Economics.

In a message released on a new website entitled Plan for Britain, May said last June’s referendum vote to leave the EU was “an instruction to change the way our whole country works”.

“I want the UK to emerge from this period of national change, stronger, fairer, more united and more outward-looking than ever before,” she said.

But her government’s U-turn on a tax rise in last week’s budget prompted questions over its competence.

“If the Tories can mess up a budget, how will they handle Brexit?” asked a lead article in the weekly conservative magazine The Spectator.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon appeared to catch the prime minister off-guard on Monday by calling for a new vote on independence before Brexit takes effect.

May countered on Thursday that “now is not the time” for another vote.

The move again raised the prospect of a break-up of Britain, just weeks before May triggers Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, the formal withdrawal process, by the end of March. –