DEFIANT MAY: I’LL FIGHT TO THE END
But she vows to see EU deal through as it’s ‘the right one for our country’ PM faces leadership battle as Brexit Secretary and six other MPs quit
THERESA May last night vowed to fight on and “see this through” after Tory Brexiteers launched a coup attempt aimed at ousting her.
On a day of high drama in Westminster, the embattled Prime Minister was hit by the resignation of her EU Exit Secretary Dominic Raab and six other MPs in frontbench and party roles.
As the Tory rift over her departure deal with Brussels burst into open civil warfare, a senior Downing Street aide overseeing Brexit legislation also quit. Mrs
May was braced for a battle to hold on to her leadership after Jacob ReesMogg led backbench Eurosceptics in demanding an immediate no-confidence vote among Tory MPs.
But in a defiant salvo at her party foes, the Prime Minister insisted she would fight any attempt to force her out and would not be deflected from her Brexit plan.
“I believe with every fibre of my being that the course I have set out is the right one for our country and all our people,” she said at a Downing Street news conference.
Asked if she would fight on even if she won a confidence ballot by just one vote, the Prime Minister said: “Am I going to see this through? Yes.”
In response to a question about whether she would “resign as captain”, cricket-loving Mrs May said: “One of my cricket heroes was always Geoffrey Boycott. And what do you know about Geoffrey Boycott? Geoffrey Boycott stuck to it and he got the runs in the end.”
Mrs May’s authority was on the line in the aftermath of her attempt to force her Cabinet to back the deal agreed between UK and EU negotiators early this week.
Mr Raab quit yesterday morning after failing to persuade the Prime Minister to dump it and return to Brussels with a new and final offer.
He was soon followed out of the Cabinet by Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey. A string of other frontbenchers left too.
Mrs May found her deal under attack from MPs across the Commons during a gruelling three-hour question and answer session.
In a withering intervention, Mr ReesMogg accused her of misleading MPs about how closely the UK will be tied to Brussels through her deal and made it clear he had lost faith in her leadership.
The backbencher, chairman of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic Tories, then held a meeting with colleagues before heading to the St
Stephen’s Entrance to Parliament to announce that he had written to party chiefs in a bid the start the no confidence process.
“This is not Brexit. It is a failure of Government policy. It needs to be rejected,” Mr Rees-Mogg said.
He goaded the Prime Minister by naming leading Tory Brexit supporters including Boris Johnson, David Davis, Mr Raab, Ms McVey and Penny Mordaunt as potential successors in Downing Street to deliver a clear break with the EU.
Mr Rees-Mogg predicted the 48-plus letters from Tory backbenchers needed to trigger a confidence vote would be reached after a string of members of his European Research Group pledged to follow his lead. Backing the move, former Brexit minister Steve Baker said: “We’ve tried everything to change policy but not the Prime Minister... it has not worked. We need a new leader.” Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee and custodian of the confidence vote process, was understood to have held a meeting with Tory Chief Whip Julian Smith yesterday but did not publicly speak about a possible ballot. Allies of the Prime Minister were appalled at the open disloyalty in the party.
But the Chief Whip said the Prime Minister would not abandon her EU withdrawal agreement in the face of widespread opposition among MPs.
Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan said Mr Rees-Mogg’s intervention was “deeply destructive” for the Government and for the Conservative Party. If this Government is undermined further, we could destroy the Government, we could significantly damage and even destroy the Conservative Party,” he told the BBC.
Mrs May found her Brexit deal attacked by Leave and Remainbacking MPs on both sides of the House. In an intervention that made Mrs May wince, former minister Mark Francois told her that she had done her best but more than 80 Tories were ready to line up with opposition parties to vote down her deal.
“It is therefore mathematically impossible to get this deal through the House of Commons,” he warned.
Democratic Unionist Party deputy leader Nigel Dodds signalled that the 10 MPs from his Northern Ireland party could end the alliance which props up Mrs May’s minority Tory government.
He said: “The choice is now clear. We stand up for the United Kingdom – the whole United Kingdom and the integrity of the United Kingdom – or we vote for a vassal state, with the break-up of the United Kingdom. That is the choice.”