Some Tory MPS ‘have lied’ about sending no-confidence letters
Pretending to have signed up is not a new phenomenon, claims the 1922 Committee chairman
SIR GRAHAM BRADY has suggested his colleagues should not try to oust Theresa May because doing so could undermine Brexit negotiations, as he revealed some Tory MPS had lied about submitting no-confidence letters.
The chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPS yesterday confirmed the threshold for a ballot on the Prime Minister’s leadership had not yet been crossed.
He said he personally believed a ballot would not be “helpful”, as he refused to be drawn on how close the threshold of 48 letters was, and insisted he was the only person who knew, with even his wife being kept in the dark.
He said: “That is absolutely right; Victoria does not know, nor do the two vice chairmen of the 1922 Committee or the other officers. Just me.”
Meanwhile, Mrs May said she was in regular contact with Sir Graham as she urged Tory MPS not to submit letters and warned that a no-confidence vote and a potential leadership contest risked stopping Brexit.
Close to 30 Tory MPS have publicly claimed to have submitted a letter to Sir Graham. But the influential backbencher said all claims of letter writing should be viewed with a degree of suspicion because some MPS had claimed to have submitted one when they actually had not.
As the sole keeper of the letters, Sir Graham is at the centre of a fierce tugof-war between disgruntled Eurosceptic Tories and Mrs May.
Sir Graham said his colleagues could be confident that he would handle the situation with the impartiality required of the 1922 Committee chairman, but he suggested it was the wrong time for a no-confidence vote to be triggered.
He told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I have my own views about what is sensible and what isn’t – whether a leadership challenge or a confidence vote in the leadership would be helpful to the negotiating process at the moment. I think probably it wouldn’t be.
“We are coming to the endgame of a very serious, very difficult negotiation and for the Conservative Party to be plunged into uncertainty, for the Government to be plunged into uncertainty, would have implications for that. Whilst I can have those views myself, it is crucially important that colleagues know that whatever my own views, they are not going to influence the way that I conduct my responsibilities as chairman of the 1922 Committee.”
Sir Graham said he had not sent a letter to himself but revealed he was “not
‘Would a leadership challenge be helpful to the negotiating process? I think probably it wouldn’t be’
happy” about the Prime Minister’s deal. He also said it was “very likely” Mrs May would win a no-confidence vote.
He did not believe Mrs May’s deal would get through the House of Commons “unless either the agreement changes or the statement of the political declaration, the future relationship, gives considerably stronger grounds for optimism about the final nature of the deal”.
Brexiteer Tories were initially bullish on the prospects of triggering a vote of no-confidence as they claimed to have more than enough support to do so. They were forced to row back on Friday afternoon as they moved to dampen expectations, but they still believe a vote could be called this week.
Sir Graham said he was aware of Tory MPS claiming in public to have written letters when he knew they had not and that this was not a “new phenomenon”. He said: “My predecessor Michael Spicer, he wrote in his diaries about the confidence vote that was held on Iain Duncan Smith’s leadership back in 2003 when he certainly had the experience of people appearing on the national news saying they had just written a letter to him when they hadn’t.
“I have had the experience. I have been doing this job for eight years and some years ago I certainly had the experience of seeing somebody claiming publicly to have written me a letter when they hadn’t and then again seeing them in public on the media saying they had withdrawn the letter that they hadn’t written in the first place.”
He suggested Tory MPS who publicly claimed to have written a letter should not necessarily be believed.
“Only in this one regard,” he said. “Obviously all of my colleagues are entirely trustworthy in every other regard.”
Mrs May told Sky News she had “regular conversations” with Sir Graham as she warned Tory MPS that replacing her as leader would not change the overall Brexit equation. “It is not going to make the (Brexit) negotiations any easier and it won’t change the parliamentary arithmetic,” she said.