No10’s alarm over Brexit revolt

More Tories set to call for leadership challenge ... but May says she’s ready to fight them off

‘The mood has worsened’ ‘Numbers to cause trouble’

DOWNING Street was last night frantically trying to shore up Theresa May’s position amid anger over her Chequers deal on Brexit.

Tory whips are on red alert for more letters of no confidence today when MPs return from their constituencies, where many activists are unhappy with her proposals.

Ministers are also working to avert a Commons rebellion tonight, when Eurosceptics are threatening to vote against the Government on vital customs legislation.

Their efforts came as Robert Courts – David Cameron’s successor as MP for Witney – dealt a fresh blow by resigning as parliamentary aide at the Foreign Office ‘to express discontent with Chequers’.

Eurosceptic MPs also believe more than 30 letters of no confidence have already been sent to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee.

However the Prime Minister came out fighting yesterday, warning Leave voters they would have to accept a ‘compromise’ if they wanted to deliver Brexit.

Chief whip Julian Smith ordered a ring-round of Conservative MPs who may have been ‘got at’ by their local associations.

Party chairman Brandon Lewis and Mrs May’s chief-of-staff Gavin Barwell also hosted a conference call for constituency chairmen and regional party organisers in an attempt to cool grassroots anger. In other developments: Opinion polls gave Labour a four-point lead over the Conservatives, putting them at 40 per cent;

Mrs May revealed that US President Donald Trump told her to ‘sue the EU’ rather than waste time negotiating;

Eurosceptic ministers Penny Mordaunt and Esther McVey were placed on ‘suicide watch’ by Downing Street, amid fears there are more resignations to come;

Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan warned the Tory Party could go ‘down the plughole’ unless it stopped the bloodletting;

Britain’s chief trade negotiator Crawford Falconer said the world was ‘begging’ to do trade deals and questioned why people were ‘so negative about our future’.

A senior Tory source acknowledged that the mood in the party was ‘febrile’, amid fears the number of no confidence letters could pass the 48 needed to trigger a formal vote in Mrs May’s leadership.

‘The chief whip is not getting a weekend,’ the source said. ‘The party is grumpy, Tory associations are grumpy and that is bleeding through into the views of MPs. Last Monday, Sir Graham said there weren’t... close to 48, but the mood has worsened since then.’

Jacob Rees-Mogg also stepped up his criticism with a rare personal attack. He said: ‘Brexit is a huge opportunity, and I’m afraid the Prime Minister doesn’t see that... I think she is a Remainer who has remained a Remainer.’

Last night it also emerged that Eurosceptics had set up a ‘party within a party’ in a bid to force Mrs May to change direction.

More than 100 Eurosceptic Tory MPs are now on a WhatsApp group co- ordinated by former Brexit minister Steve Baker, who is giving them voting instructions.

But Mrs May yesterday warned that Britain could be left with ‘no Brexit at all’ if MPs thwarted her plans. She also appeared on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in an attempt to sell her Chequers deal.

Mrs May said she had opted for the deal, which includes plans for a ‘common rule book’ with the EU on goods, because Brussels’ proposals were ‘unacceptable’.

She added: ‘If we’re going to find something that was in Britain’s interests, delivered on the referendum, and was negotiable, we had to make what is a compromise.’

Today, Mrs May faces a Commons battle as the Government tries to pass the Taxation (Crossborder Trade) Bill, which will allow it to set tariffs after Brexit.

Tory Eurosceptics have tabled four amendments, but one source said: ‘This is about showing we have the numbers to cause trouble, not about wrecking the Bill.’

JUSTINE Greening last night became the first senior Tory to back a second Brexit referendum. The former education secretary wrote in The Times that a vote was needed to break the ‘deadlock’ at Westminster.