BORIS HAS BLOWN IT
Backbenchers warn a ‘lack of backbone’ will scupper his dream of No 10
‘This is the time to step up’
BORIS Johnson has blown his chance of ever becoming Tory leader by backing Theresa May’s Brexit plan, furious Eurosceptic MPs told him last night.
As bitter divisions broke out between the Brexit supporters on the backbenches and in the Cabinet, rank-andfile MPs told ministers it was still not too late to withdraw their support for the agreement and resign.
Several MPs expressed their anger about how the ministers had all signed up to the Prime Minister’s proposal on Friday, despite voicing their concerns.
Mr Johnson is understood to have denounced the plan with a four-letter expletive during the Cabinet meeting at Chequers, before agreeing to support it.
The Foreign Secretary had warned colleagues it could be a ‘serious inhibitor to free trade’ and striking deals with other countries. Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom, another key figure in the Brexit campaign, told Mrs May, ‘I hate this’, before minutes later conceding: ‘I’ll support you no matter what decision you take.’
In a sign of the anger and division amongst the Eurosceptics, backbench MPs yesterday said they had sent messages to the Brexiteers in the Cabinet, asking: ‘Where is your backbone?’
One ringleader of the backbench revolt said: ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if one of the Cabinet ministers doesn’t still decide to resign.
‘People have been messaging the Brexiteer Cabinet ministers saying: “Look, where is your backbone? It is not too late to resign and actually show some leadership”. It would not surprise me if some of them gave in to that, especially those who want the party leadership.’
The source added that opponents of the plan had also been texting backbenchers with leadership ambitions, telling them: ‘This is the time to step up.’
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen yesterday said he was ‘ deeply disappointed’ that Brexiteer Ministers ‘didn’t pick up the cudgels’ and prevent the Cabinet supporting the proposal, which he said was ‘a huge mistake for our country, for the party, for the Government and for the Prime Minister’.
Another Brexiteer backbencher denounced Environment Secretary Michael Gove as ‘the main snake in the grass’ after he spoke up in favour of Mrs May’s plan during the 12-hour meeting at Chequers.
But allies of the Brexiteers in the Cabinet last night dismissed the scale of the anger from MPs.
One said: ‘There are a couple of real purists, but my sense is that other Eurosceptic backbenchers see there is a reality to the situation that we have to deal with. The critics are a minority voice in the Conservative Party – if they trigger a confidence vote I don’t think it will get anywhere.’ He added: ‘Working out the possible consequences on future leadership bids was not the calculation being made by Michael, Boris or Andrea. They were not thinking about that stuff when they were at Chequers, they were thinking about what Brexit deal was on the table and how to navigate through the difficult situation we’re in.’
Another source dismissed the idea that resigning from the Cabinet would help the cause of the Brexiteers. He said: ‘If the problem is that a majority of Remain Cabinet ministers are hijacking the whole Brexit process, it strikes me that the answer to that is not to get rid of all the Brexiteers out of the Cabinet. That does not appear to be the right solution.’
A friend of Mr Johnson’s said: ‘Everybody knows that if it was not for him we would have arrived at an even softer Brexit and arrived
there a lot quicker. It’s important for him to stay around the Cabinet table and ensure that it doesn’t go any softer.’
A source close to Mrs Leadsom said: ‘Andrea was frank about her views, she made clear she understood the impossible position the Prime Minister is in and having heard all the arguments, would back her with some conditions.’