David Davis tipped to be interim Tory leader
As Cabinet turns on May, Johnson’s allies insist Brexit Secretary is ‘unity candidate’
DAVID DAVIS last night emerged as the unity candidate to lead the Conservative Party after he was tipped for the post by allies of Boris Johnson.
Yesterday several Cabinet ministers declined to offer long-term support to Theresa May, further destabilising her position as Prime Minister.
If Mrs May quits suddenly, the Brexit Secretary is being touted as a candidate to step in and lead until March 2019, when Brexit is expected to take place.
Today Mr Davis heads to Brussels to open discussions with the EU. He pledged to secure “a deep and special partnership between the UK and the EU. A deal like no other in history.”
One ally of Mr Johnson said Mr Davis would be a “serious contender” for the leadership if it was vacated and the “perfect tonic” against a resurgent Jeremy Corbyn. However, Mr Johnson is still widely seen as the most likely leadership candidate and suggestions Mr Davis is best-placed to mount a challenge may be an attempt to smoke out his rival.
Last night Mr Johnson was forced to deny he had started to plan a leadership bid after photographs surfaced of him and Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary and a key ally of Mrs May, deep in conversation outside a pub in Kent on Saturday evening.
The news emerged as Philip Hammond and Andrea Leadsom, two Cabinet ministers who could also challenge for the leadership, failed to say Mrs May would still be leader at a general election held in five years’ time. Mrs May’s stock is at its lowest since she became Prime Minister last year after her gamble to call a general election backfired and she failed to win a Commons majority. She was also widely criticised for failing to visit the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy until after the Queen and Mr Corbyn.
She now faces having to attend the Queen’s Speech on Wednesday without having won the agreement of the Democratic Unionist Party’s 10 MPS to support her in the House of Commons.
Talks about a confidence and supply deal with the DUP have been continuing for nine days and are expected to conclude with an announcement tomorrow or Tuesday. Any further delay will throw into doubt Mrs May’s chances of winning the vote on the Queen’s Speech a week on Wednesday.
One Sunday newspaper said up to a dozen Tory backbenchers were ready to demand a vote of no confidence in Mrs May by submitting letters to Graham Brady, the chairman of the party’s 1922 Committee of backbench MPS.
Mr Davis is seen by some as better placed than Mr Johnson because he is not tainted by the promise from the Vote Leave campaign at last year’s EU referendum to spend £350million on the NHS after Britain leaves the EU.
One senior Eurosceptic Tory source said of Mr Davis: “Camp DD is very conscious that the mantle of history is moving slowly towards them and they are not stirring things up. I cannot see how he is not going to get it. It will have to be a Leaver this time. If it comes
down to Boris v DD, Boris is not free of the toxic NHS stuff.”
On BBC1’S Andrew Marr Show Mr Hammond was asked “how long has Theresa May got?” and replied: “What the country needs now is a period of calm while we get on with the job in hand.” The Chancellor also undermined Mrs May’s Brexit position that “no deal is better than a bad deal”, saying “no deal would be a very, very bad outcome for Britain”.
Asked on BBC1’S Sunday Politics if Mrs May “might lead the party into another election”, Andrea Leadsom, Leader of the House of Commons, said: “I don’t look into the future.”
Robert Halfon, appointed a minister by Mrs May last year and then sacked after the election, admitted that some Tory MPS wanted her out. He told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “There are always murmurings here and there at any time but I think most of the party wants Theresa May to continue.”
However, former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith told Sophy Ridge on Sunday the party needed stability not “silly people running around… trying to tell everybody what they’re going to do”.
Downing Street and Mr Davis declined to comment last night.
Last night a spokesman for Mr Johnson said: “We are fully supporting the Prime Minister and whoever these allies are don’t speak for the Foreign Secretary.”