I’m close to a good Brexit deal, vows embattled May
THERESA May will today urge MPs to recognise how close she is to a good Brexit deal as she attempts to thwart threats to her leadership.
The Prime Minister faces another long grilling in the Commons following last week’s summit with European Union leaders in Brussels. She is braced for anger from all sides about her handling of negotiations.
But she will defend her record, insisting progress has been made on issues ranging from Cyprus to Gibraltar and security, transport and services relationships in the past three weeks.
“Taking all of this together, 95 per cent of the Withdrawal Agreement and its protocols are now settled,” she is expected to say.
She will also vow never to accept EU proposals which would see the UK broken up by placing a customs border in the Irish Sea.
Mrs May faces challenges over her agreement last week to consider extending the post-Brexit transition period from the end of December 2020 into 2021.
She has said it may be needed to avoid creating a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, but Brexiteers fear it will trap Britain under EU rules and payment obligations.
Some critics predict the number of formal letters submitted by MPs demanding a contest will this week hit the threshold of 48 to trigger a challenge.
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said last night: “She has lost confidence of huge swathes of the party. Some people have been waiting for it to get worse before they put in their letters but it can’t get much worse than this.
“This week Theresa May will find that she is drinking in the last chance saloon and the bad news for her is that the bar is already dry.”
Some colleagues used much more lurid phrases to describe the Prime Minister’s plight. One anonymous ally of former Brexit Secretary David Davis, who some see as an interim leader if Mrs May falls, said she was entering “the killing zone”. Others spoke of “assassination in the air” and the moment coming “when the knife gets heated, stuck in her front and twisted, she’ll be dead soon”.
One Brexiteer warned Mrs May should “bring her own noose” if she came to address rank and file MPs at their 1922 Committee meeting on Wednesday.
But Tory MP Andrew Rosindell said: “I don’t like that language and we should support the PM.
“But she has to understand that we can’t go on and on compromising – looking like we’re on the run.”
However, there is uncertainty over who should replace Mrs May and how fast it could happen at a critical time in negotiations.
Brexiteer and former minister Theresa Villiers dismissed a potential leadership contest and said some of the language was “disturbing and really unhelpful”.
Tory former minister Robert Hal-
fon said a new leader would make no difference if the party had the wrong values and harsh language was “not the way to change things”.
He added: “It confirms what many of the people think of us, that we are all potentially out for ourselves and not on the side of working people”.
Brexit Minister Suella Braverman declined to criticise the violent language and refused three times to tell BBC Radio 5 Live if she would back Mrs May in a confidence vote.
Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab urged restive Tory MPs to unite – and to wait for the deal with Brussels that he said was nearly done.
He told The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One he understood people’s “frustration and jitters” but urged people “to hold our nerve”.
Potential leadership candidate Mr Davis urged the UK to be tougher with the EU and make clear what the bloc could lose in a nodeal Brexit. In a newspaper article, he warned Mrs May could squander the “golden opportunity” of Brexit.