Battle of Portaloo
Brexiteers threaten to humiliate May at Party Conference over Hammond's ‘no deal’ warnings as Tories take sides in the bitter...
days of the Chequers summit as they could not support the agreed approach. ‘ As men of principle, they both decided they could not and quickly resigned,’ he said.
‘Mr Hammond clearly has a similar problem in sticking to the agreed Government position and should therefore follow suit.’
Mrs May will face a no- confidence vote if 48 or more Tory rebels submit letters to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the party’s powerful 1922 backbench committee at Westminster. But yesterday, Sir Graham appeared to offer the beleaguered Prime Minister support, praising her humility as a politician. He said that when it came to achieving a good Brexit, ‘a politician who has as little ego as Theresa May, calmly getting on with it, may be the best chance of achieving that’.
Mrs May’s allies argue that she is the only ‘captain of the ship’ who can navigate the country through the negotiations while holding the warring wings of her party together.
Meanwhile, the ‘Portaloo plan’ is one of a number of secret agreements with companies and industry groups that have arisen as part of a process of consultation with logistics firms.
Much of the planning work has been orchestrated by sub-committees of the Border Co-ordination Group, a cross Whitehall committee of senior officials.
Mr Raab’s upbeat remarks came as t he Government published the first tranche of papers spelling out its no-deal contingency plans, covering banking, medicines and clinical trials, nuclear research, workplace rights and farm payments.
They represent about a third of the 80 or so technical papers that are to be released by the end of next month.
He rejected claims that the Army would have to be brought in to distribute food, but warned of higher credit card charges and online shopping bills, and said that British expats were at risk of losing their pensions and access to their bank accounts.
The prospect of a no-deal outcome has increased since the Chequers proposals were published – with both Brexiteer Tories and Brussels negotiators describing them as unacceptable.
Yesterday, former Tory Minister Nick Boles claimed that a no-deal Brexit would be blocked by at least 40 of his fellow Conservatives in the Commons.
‘ I don’t care how many of my colleagues dream of this in the midnight hour. There are not the parliamentary numbers to support a no-deal Brexit,’ he said. ‘And I will vote, as a Conservative MP, in whatever way is necessary, on whatever motion will achieve the result of stopping a no-deal Brexit.’
This would force Mrs May back to the negotiating table – or beg the EU for an emergency extension to the Article 50 deadline at the end of March.