Wounded May is ‘on her knees’
PM facing civil war in Cabinet over hard Brexit plans MPs plotting ‘no conf idence’ letters for leader’s contest Claims No10 is close to paralysis after advisers quit
THERESA MAY is today facing a Brexit civil war after a former Minister warned a ‘soft’ break with Brussels would be a ‘betrayal’ of the nation.
David Jones, sacked as Brexit Minister by the Prime Minister last week, warned that Mrs May’s Government would face the fury of voters if it now turned its back on a clean break with the EU.
Mr Jones told The Mail on Sunday that trying to keep the UK in the EU single market or customs union would be seen as an ‘ absolute betrayal of trust’.
But his intervention came as a new poll showed overwhelming opposition to a so- called ‘ hard Brexit’, just hours before the start of crunch talks with the EU.
The Survation poll for The Mail on Sunday shows support for the ‘softer’ position advocated by Chancellor Philip Hammond, who has spearheaded criticism of the hard Brexit stance of leadership contenders Boris Johnson and David Davis. Pro-Brexit MPs fear that Mr Hammond is mounting a ‘stealth coup’ by exploiting Mrs May’s postElection weakness to assert his vision of leaving – over the Prime Minister’s original preference to walk away from talks if Brussels denies the UK a good deal.
Survation found that the Chancell or i s backed by an emphatic two- thirds of voters, while just 31 per cent of voters back the hard Brexit position of leaving the customs union.
Mrs May’s allies are now desperately trying to prop her up in power amid mounting discontent on the Tory backbenches over the disastrous General Election result and her lacklustre response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
One Brexiteer said: ‘May is on her knees and Hammond is blatantly exploiting the fact.’
Party whips received information this weekend that some MPs have started t o draft l etters of no confidence against Mrs May.
These will be sent to the party’s backbench 1922 Committee if her performance fails to improve before the first Commons votes on t he Queen’s Speech in t en days’ time.
A contest would be triggered if the committee receives 48 letters – 15 per cent of the parliamentary party – with Mr Johnson and Mr Davis already established as the clear frontrunners.
And l ast night, The Mail on Sunday was told by one senior pro-Brexit MP that he would be ‘astounded’ if letters had not gone in already.
He said plans were being hatched t o present Mrs May with ‘ an ultimatum’ that she had to go and be replaced if possible by a new leader, installed unopposed to avoid a divisive contest.
The MP said: ‘The mood towards Theresa completely changed last week. We started thinking she could limp on for a few months. But her response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy has telescoped that into a matter of days or weeks.’
He said Mr Johnson was probably most people’s preferred choice.
Returning to their constituencies after being sworn in at Westminster, Tory MPs were taken aback at the scale of the anger of grassroots party activists over Mrs May’s performance last week.
The t urmoil at Westminster comes as EU sources revealed that the Brexit discussions will have to resolve more than 7,000 outstanding issues by the time we leave in March 2019, ranging from pets’ passports to aviation safety.
The scale of the undertaking is revealed by the fact that Wednesday’s Queen’s Speech will be the last for two years.
In a highly unusual move, two annual Commons sessions will be rolled into one in an attempt to pass the Great Repeal Bill, the legislation required to transfer all EU laws on to the British statute book.
Downing Street fears that the Bill will lead to months of ‘guerrilla warfare’ in the Commons which could topple the Government now that it no longer has a majority.
A senior Government source said: ‘ Our great fear is that the soft Brexiteers will hang the sword of Damocles over our heads by putting down endless amendments to the Great Repeal Bill to pull us back from a hard Brexit.
‘If they put down motions which prevent us from leaving without a deal it could change the whole nature of our negotiations because the Europeans will know that we don’t have a “walk away position”.
‘There is also the nightmare prospect that they use an amendment to try to commiti us to stayingi ini theh single market.’
The pro-Remain Tory rebels are likely to join forces with Labour MPs, who say they will subject the Government’s negotiations to what they describe as ‘continuous assessment’ – a series of rolling Commons votes as the talks progress.
The aim will be to, in the words of a senior Labour source, ‘ hold their feet to the fire’ and push Ministers into backing away from a hard Brexit.
However, a senior Cabinet ally of Mrs May said last night: ‘We just need to get back to ordinary poli-
‘Its team gone, No 10 is barely operational’