You’re tearing the Tories apart, Raab and hard Brexiteers told
Tory rebels were last night warned they risked splitting the party as hardline Brexiteers refused to accept Theresa May’s confidence vote victory.
Despite the Prime Minister winning the support of around two-thirds of her MPs, critics yesterday resumed their attacks.
Dominic raab, the former Brexit secretary who is thought to be plotting a possible future leadership bid, led the opposition to Mrs May by publicly calling for her to go. Mr raab said it was hard to see how she could remain as he confirmed that he had not supported her in the vote.
Boris Johnson, another leadership hopeful, is also thought to have opposed Mrs May remaining in charge but has so far refused to comment publicly.
And Jacob rees-Mogg, the chairman of the European research Group, continued to call for her to quit yesterday, claiming she had been critically undermined.
However, several of the 117 MPs who had voted against the Prime Minister in Wednesday night’s ballot yesterday said it was time to rally behind her. Meanwhile, ministers and Tory moderates pleaded with the hardline Brexiteers to end their attacks on the Prime Minister, warning that they risked catastrophe for the party and for Brexit. Some even warned that the rancour could split the party.
Tory deputy chairman James Cleverly said: ‘Some colleagues, perhaps out of frustration (are) saying foolish things about other Conservatives. Now would be a good time to stop. respect the results of the two referendums – 52 per cent to leave the EU and 63 per cent to support Theresa May.’
Mr raab, who quit the Cabinet in protest at Mrs May’s Brexit deal, appeared to attempt to position himself as her successor by openly sympathising with her opponents.
He said: ‘We will have to back her as best we can, but the problem is that both in relation to Brexit and the wider sustainability of the Government, given the likelihood of any changes to the deal, given the likely scale of opposition, it looks very difficult to see how this Prime Minister can lead us forward.
‘My biggest fear now is that if she continues there is a greater risk of a Jeremy Corbyn government – so very much in sorrow, not in anger, I didn’t vote for her last night.’
Mr rees-Mogg continued to call for Mrs May to quit yesterday, telling radio 4’s Today show: ‘you may remember that Margaret Thatcher... said, “We fight on, we fight to win”. Nobody was tougher than Mrs Thatcher, and the next day she resigned. So it’s not impossible.’
However, other Eurosceptic Tories suggested it was time to end the sniping. Crispin Blunt, who wrote a letter of no confidence in Mrs May, and Nadine Dorries, another outspoken critic, said it was time to respect the result of the confidence vote.
A string of Conservative MPs urged the rebels to help unify the party. Sir Nicholas Soames, the Tory MP for Mid Sussex, called on Mr rees-Mogg to ‘reflect on the dismal failure of his efforts to unship Theresa May and the trouble he has fomented’.
‘A period of quiet and a good dose of humility now required. Enough now, shut up,’ he added.
Foreign minister Alistair Burt tweeted: ‘After the apocalypse, all that will be left will be ants and Tory MPs complaining about Europe and their leader.’
Michael Fabricant, the MP for Lichfield, said: ‘[The] Tories must now unify and avoid the selfdestructiveness of Major years.’
Meanwhile, former minister Nicky Morgan suggested that a split in the Conservatives may be looming, with hardline Eurosceptics leaving the party. She told the BBC: ‘I think there’s an inevitability that some of these people - the hardest Brexiteers - are going to walk.
‘There may be some sort of reconfiguration of parties on the right of the UK political spectrum and that may be something we are going to have to accept in order to get a Brexit deal through the Commons.’
Philip Hammond last night rowed back from comments branding Tory Brexiteers ‘extremists’.
The Chancellor told The Sun he did not intend ‘ to cause any offence’ and insisted he was committed to delivering Brexit.