Am I going to see this through? Yes, vows def iant May
THERESA May last night vowed to stand and fight if Eurosceptic plotters try to oust her in a coup.
The Prime Minister said at a defiant Press conference in Downing Street, she would not be deflected from delivering a Brexit deal she believes is in the ‘national interest’.
Asked directly whether she would fight a vote of no confidence if a contest is triggered by mutinous MPs in the coming days, she replied: ‘Am I going to see this through? Yes.’
The Prime Minister also insisted she would defy predictions that wide-ranging opposition to her deal means it will inevitably be voted down by MPs next month. She cited her cricketing hero Geoffrey Boycott to illustrate her determination.
Mrs May faced a series of hostile questions, with reporters suggesting she was ‘in denial’ and ‘in office, but not in power’ – a charge last levelled against John Major in the wake of Black Wednesday.
The Prime Minister said she was conscious of the ‘heavy responsibility’ she bears in trying to negotiate Brexit and ‘build from the ground up a new and enduring relationship for the good of our children and grandchildren is a matter of the highest consequence’.
She said she did not blame ministers such as Dominic Raab and Esther McVey for abandoning her over Brexit, but insisted they were wrong to brand her plans a betrayal.
‘My approach throughout has been to put the national interest first,’ she said. ‘Not a partisan interest. And certainly not my own political interest. I do not judge harshly those of my colleagues who seek to do the same but who reach a different conclusion. They must do what they believe to be right, just as I do.
‘I am sorry that they have chosen to leave the Government and I thank them for their service.
‘But 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.’ Yesterday’s Press conference followed a marathon three-hour session in the Commons when Mrs May faced tough questioning from MPs on all sides.
Only a handful of her own MPs spoke up for the proposals, and Labour said the Government was ‘falling apart before our eyes’.
At one point, Jacob Rees Mogg told the Commons: ‘What she says and what she does no longer match, should I not write to the Member for Altrincham and Sale West [Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee]?’
But Mrs May, who was also battling to prevent the resignations of Michael Gove, Penny Mordaunt and Chris Grayling, insisted she could not back down in the face of criticism in her own ranks.
‘Leadership is about taking the right decisions, not the easy ones,’ she said.
‘As Prime Minister, my job is to bring back a deal that delivers on the vote of the British people, that does that by ending free movement... ensuring we are not sending vast annual sums to the EU any longer, ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, but also protects jobs and protects people’s livelihoods, protects our security, protects the union of the United Kingdom.
She added: ‘Yes, difficult and sometimes uncomfortable decisions have had to be made. I understand fully that there are some who are unhappy with those compromises.
‘But this deal delivers what people voted for and it is in the national interest.’
Yesterday’s dramatic day followed a five-hour Cabinet row the previous evening when ministers tried to reach agreement on her Brexit proposals.
She now faces a gruelling month as she prepares to nail down the exit deal at a summit in Brussels, negotiate a future trade agreement and attempt to get the deal through Parliament, while trying to fend off an attempted coup. Allies last night insisted she remained ‘remarkably resilient’.
Former minister Nick Boles, who has battled cancer, said he did not agree with the PM’s Brexit plans, but added: ‘I don’t think I have even a tenth of the grit and resilience of the woman who is our Prime Minister. I take my hat off to her.’
‘Uncomfortable decisions’