Britain’s May fights back as Tory plotters wield the knife

LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May said yesterday she would stay on as leader to provide stability after a former chairman of her Conservative Party said he had garnered the support of 30 MPs who wanted her to quit.

May is trying to face down a Tory rebellion as Britain enters a crucial stage in Brexit talks, 18 months before the country leaves the EU.

Some Conservative plotters say her authority is shattered beyond repair after a disas- trous speech at her party’s conference, which comes after she called a snap election and lost her party its majority in parliament.

Speaking from her parliamentary constituency of Maidenhead in southern England, May said: “What the country needs is calm leadership and that’s what I’m providing with the full support of my cabinet.”

Senior ministers rallied around May, who has just over a year to agree a divorce deal with the EU ahead of Britain’s exit in March 2019. May said she planned to hold a scheduled meeting about Brexit with business leaders on Monday in Downing Street.

But former party chairman Grant Shapps told BBC radio: “I think she should call a leadership election.”

After May’s bungled election, her failure to unite the cabinet and a poor party conference “the writing is on the wall,” he said.

May’s authority was already diminished by her decision to call a snap election in June that lost her party its majority in parliament days before Brexit talks opened.

Supporters, including her most senior ministers, said she should remain in charge to deliver Brexit.

Under the headline “Theresa May will stay as Prime Minister and get the job done”, Home Secretary Amber Rudd wrote in The Daily Telegraph newspaper that “she should stay”. May’s de facto deputy Damian Green said she would carry on. Environment Secretary Michael Gove also said he hoped she would continue.

“I know that she is as determined as ever to get on with the job; she sees it as her duty to do so and she will carry on and she will make a success of this government,” Green, the first secretary of state, said.

Many Conservative activists fear a leadership contest would exacerbate the divide in the party over Europe, an issue that helped sink the previous three Conservative prime ministers – David Cameron, John Major and Margaret Thatcher.

A leadership contest could also pave the way for an election that some Conservatives worry could be won by Labour’s increasingly popular Jeremy Corbyn, whom they cast as a Marxist who would reverse decades of free market policies. “The Conservatives have no plan for Britain and their posturing will not deliver the change our country is crying out for,” he said. – Reuters