Whips twist arms in desperate attempt to stem flow of letters
Dear Sir Graham,” wrote Mark Francois MP. “She Just Doesn’t Listen.”
The Eurosceptic had just become the 20th Conservative MP to call publicly for Theresa May’s head, and in his letter to the chairman of the 1922 Committee the former Territorial Army soldier insisted that in doing so he was “defending my country again”.
By the end of the day the number had reached 23.
Like dozens of his fellow Tory MPS, he had decided to go over the top in what was intended to be a decisive charge to victory.
But in the whips’ office, a sophisticated counter-attack was under way as the Prime Minister’s loyalists tried to pick off the Brexiteers one by one.
As more and more disillusioned Tory MPS wrote to Sir Graham Brady yesterday calling for a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, whips were told to stay in London, giving them the opportunity to twist arms and target the vulnerable.
The prize for the Brexiteers was to recruit 48 MPS willing to submit letters calling for a confidence vote among Tory MPS. The whips’ job was to stop that number being reached.
Both sides were effectively flying blind, as the only person who knows how many letters have been submitted is Sir Graham himself, who remains as inscrutable as a statue.
Steve Baker, deputy chairman of the European Research Group of Conservative Eurosceptics and the former Brexit minister, boasted yesterday morning that he already had 48 names of MPS who had put in letters or were about to, with another dozen “probables”, he claimed.
Jacob Rees-mogg, who submitted his own letter on Thursday, was rather more cautious when he was asked if the target of 48 had been reached.
“We’ll see,” he replied, raising his eyebrows. Shortly before 7am the BBC reported that John Whittingdale, the former culture secretary, had submitted a letter, followed at 10.30am by Mr Francois, the former Armed Forces minister and another deputy chairman of the ERG.
His frustration frothed over three pages of House of Commons notepaper as he railed against the Praetorian Guard of Europhile civil servants who surround the Prime Minister, determined to betray the will of the people.
He and others had tried repeatedly for four months to persuade Mrs May that a Chequers-based deal would never get through Parliament but, he said, “no one really listened to a word we said”. Despite the warnings, he added, “she is, in short, in complete denial”. Ben Bradley, a former vicechairman for the youth of the party who quit his post in July over the Chequers plan, was next to announce the submission of a letter, along with Chris Green, the Bolton West MP.
Mr Green said he had taken the decision “with a heavy heart” because “my constituents want a clean break from the European Union, taking back control of our laws, our borders, our money and our trade. The withdrawal proposal from the Prime Minister will not help deliver that result”.
By 2.15pm Marcus Fysh, the Yeovil MP, confirmed to The Daily Telegraph that he had joined the letter-writers, saying that Mrs May was “no longer honouring the eferendum result, the manifesto on which she and I stood, her promises to the House of Commons, or her duty to speak the truth to the House of Commons about the effects of her proposals.
“Let’s be clear. She proposes to give up our country’s independence and she is unfit to lead.”
Unexpectedly, however, Sir Graham left London for his constituency in Altrincham shortly after lunch time, suggesting he was not about to announce that a vote had been triggered.
Suddenly the Brexiteers seemed less confident that they would reach 48 letters before the weekend.
Mr Baker rowed back from his earlier predictions, saying: “It’s much more likely next week” that the threshold would be reached.
He suggested that some MPS would want to speak to their constituency chairmen before making a final decision, but there was no disguising the sense that the anti-may bandwagon, which had seemed unstoppable when Mr Rees-mogg held a dramatic outdoor press conference on Thursday, was beginning to slow down.
Sources in the whips’ office insisted yesterday that they had not targeted anyone known to have submitted a letter, but were instead concentrating on shoring up support for the “meaningful vote” on the Brexit deal.
It led to speculation that the whips, who cancelled a planned briefing session on the Withdrawal Agreement, were trying to prevent MPS submitting letters, rather than trying to persuade Brexiteers to withdraw them.
Another source said the whips had discussed plans for six hours of debate and votes on Monday and Tuesday to implement last month’s Budget.
One source said that “regardless of what is going on in the Parliamentary party we have still got to get the boring bits of legislation done”.
Separately, Mrs May was carrying out her own below-the-radar whipping operation from her constituency home in Sonning, Berks.
At 4.30 yesterday afternoon she held a conference call with Conservative Association chairmen, ostensibly to explain the Brexit deal to them. It also, however, would have provided an opportunity to subtly remind the party grass roots of the consequences of toppling their leader at such a volatile moment.