‘Timid’ May facing leadership challenge from Brexiteers
Chancellor rebuked by May after telling Davos leaders that UK’S relationship with the EU will hardly change
THERESA MAY last night faced a challenge to her leadership and Brexit strategy from Leave-supporting Tory MPS who fear she is too “timid” to make a clean break from Brussels.
Jacob Rees-mogg, the leader of a Conservative group representing 60 Brexit-supporting MPS, made a speech in which he warned that the Government’s tone on EU withdrawal needed to “fundamentally change”.
Alarm bells rang for Brexiteer Cabinet ministers and Tory backbenchers when Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, called for only “very modest” changes after the UK leaves the EU in a keynote speech in Davos.
Downing Street was so concerned about a backlash that aides intervened to tone down a major Brexit speech by David Davis due to be delivered today, amid fears its contents would prompt a challenge to Mrs May’s leadership.
Whitehall sources said the first draft of his speech sought to manage expectations and explain that the transition period was the price to pay for the final prize of leaving the EU.
But sections of the speech are understood to have been tweaked by a jittery No10 to ensure that the main thrust of Mr Davis’s comments will focus on the prospects of future trade deals to be negotiated during the transition.
It came after reports that more than 40 Tory MPS have now written to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, calling for a leadership election, a claim sources close to Sir Graham denied. If he receives 48 letters he will be duty-bound to begin a leadership contest.
Brexiteers fear that Britain is about to become a “vassal state” of the EU because it will accept new rules made by the European Court of Justice during transition without any powers to block them, leaving Britain vulnerable to a “stitch up” by Brussels.
In response to Mr Hammond’s remarks, Mr Rees-mogg told The Daily Telegraph that the Prime Minister would lose the support of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic Tory MPS if she attempted to form a customs union with the EU. Such a move would effectively rob Mrs May of her majority in the House of Commons.
THERESA MAY rebuked Philip Hammond last night after he prompted a Cabinet row by making a public call for a soft Brexit.
The Chancellor used a speech in Davos, Switzerland, to say that there would only be “very modest” changes to relations between the EU and the UK after Brexit. He praised a call by the CBI group of business leaders for Britain to have the “closest possible relationship between the EU and the UK”.
He also called for a liberal approach to free movement, saying: “We want to maintain the closest possible relationship in people to people exchanges”.
His comments prompted a backlash from Cabinet colleagues and backbenchers, who said he was putting the Tories on the “path to electoral ruin”.
Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary, praised an article by Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s former chief-of-staff, in The Daily Telegraph which accused the Chancellor of failing to understand why people voted for Brexit.
One Cabinet source said: “The party promised in its manifesto to take back control of money, borders and laws. This is official policy. Hammond is working with officials and Eurocrats to leave the EU in charge, leaving Britain as a submissive rule-taker. This is the path to electoral ruin for the Tories.”
Another Cabinet source said: “Hammond seems to be fighting the referendum all over again, he’s had the chance to make this case.
“It’s Government policy to leave the single market and end free movement and this is directly against that commitment. Number 10 must act.”
A Downing Street source said last night: “The Government’s policy is that we are leaving the single market and the customs union. Whilst we want a deep and special economic partnership with the EU after we leave, these could not be described as very modest changes.”
It comes after the Prime Minister and other Cabinet ministers rebuked Boris Johnson for calling for the NHS to receive an extra £100million a week after Britain leaves the EU.
Mr Hammond later issued a clarification on Twitter in an attempt to defuse the row. However, he did not retract his claim of “very modest changes”.
Jacob Rees-mogg, the leader of a group of 60 eurosceptic Tory MPS, last night said that the Government’s tone needed to “fundamentally change”.
In a speech at Churcher’s College in Petersfield, Hants, he said: “If [Brexit’s opportunities are] taken off the table, then Brexit becomes only a damage limitation exercise. The British people did not vote for that. They did not vote for the management of decline. They voted for hope and opportunity and politicians must now deliver it.
“If we do not, if we are timid and cowering and terrified of the future, then our children and theirs will judge us in the balance and find us wanting. ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin’ – as the writing on the wall said at the feast of Belshazzar. We have our future and our destiny in our hands.”
He added: “There is a great Brexit opportunity and some really obvious benefits that we can get that improve the condition of the people. This is currently at risk.
“The negotiations that are about to begin sound as if they aim to keep us in a similar system to the single market and the customs union. ‘Close alignment’ means de facto the single market, it would make the UK a rule-taker like Norway, divested of even the limited influence we currently have.”
At Davos, Mr Hammond even made a joke at the expense of Mr Johnson: “As we came into Davos, there was an avalanche warning yet the Foreign Secretary isn’t even there.”
Andrew Percy, a Tory MP, replied: “Put a sock in it Phil. Getting a bit sick of ‘freelancing Phil’ mocking other Cabinet ministers and writing his own Brexit policy.”