WILL PIZZA PLOT TOPPLE THE PM?
Tomorrow night a powerful group of pro-Brexit Ministers will meet in secret over a takeaway -- and decide whether to knife Mrs May
THERESA MAY’s future as Prime Minister could be decided tomorrow evening over boxes of takeaway pizzas in a historic room deep in the bowels of Parliament.
Pro-Brexit Cabinet Ministers will assemble in the office behind the Speaker’s Chair to decide whether to accept Theresa May’s latest attempted Brexit fudge – or to walk out in protest during Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting.
If they resign en masse, Mrs May’s tenure in Downing Street could be measured in just weeks.
The ‘ pizza club’ is chaired by Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom in her palatial room and regular attenders include International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt, Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey and Transport Secretary Chris Grayling – all staunch Brexiteers.
The club has met secretly during moments of crisis in the Brexit negotiations to co-ordinate their approach to Mrs May’s strategy.
But with at least three members prepared to quit the Cabinet if Mrs May does not agree to set a strict time limit on the UK’s membership of a customs union at a crunch Brussels summit on Wednesday, tomorrow’s gathering has become critical to the Government’s fate.
The extraordinary behind- thescenes drama comes as:
Allies of former Brexit Secretary David Davis attacked Boris Johnson, saying he could never become leader and should stand aside for Davis, while Boris’s supporters hit back, describing Davis as ‘painfully out of his depth’;
Tory HQ stepped up preparations for a Christmas General Election if Mrs May’s Chequers plan is rejected by MPs, leading to panic among Ministers;
Brexiteer backbenchers warned that if Mrs May tries to push through Chequers with Labour support, they will hit the ‘nuclear’ option of an instant no confidence vote;
Ex- Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont warned the PM that if she did not ‘chuck Chequers’, she risked letting Jeremy Corbyn into No 10.
This weekend, No 10 is trying to broker a deal with the rebels to secure Cabinet approval for Mrs May’s plan before she heads to Brussels to try to win over the EU.
Mrs May has struggled to unite her party around the plan agreed at her Chequers residence in the summer, which will see the UK remain closely tied to Brussels and create a new UK-EU free trade area for goods under a ‘common rulebook’.
The Ministers will thrash out whether they can accept Mrs May’s new ‘backstop’ plan to avoid a hard Irish border which would see the UK effectively remain in a customs union with the EU after Brexit until a permanent solution to the border issue can be found.
Brexiteers have been alarmed by signs that No 10 is rowing back on a previous commitment that the UK will have cut customs ties by the end of 2021 ‘at the latest’ in the face of resistance from Brussels. Mrs May has also faced warnings from Northern Ireland’s DUP party that it could vote down this month’s Budget if the province is ‘cut off’ from the rest of the UK by effectively remaining in the Single Market along with Ireland – while customs checks are carried out in the middle of the Irish Sea.
The ‘ pizza club’ has also been joined over the past year by Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, who backed Remain but have tacked towards Brexit as they eye the next leadership race.
A pizza club source said: ‘We have managed to keep it very secret. We slip into Andrea’s office and she orders eight or nine boxes of pizza from a place in Pimlico while we try to make sense of how to respect the result of the referendum and stay true to our beliefs without destabilising the entire Government’.
Brexiteer Tory MPs are growing increasingly militant. Last week, one prominent member of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s European Research Group obtained advice from the parliamentary authorities about how to trigger a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, passed seven years ago.
The MP said: ‘Mrs May has her backstop, and so do we – the nuclear backstop. If she tries to get Chequers through by using Labour votes we will blow her up before she has a chance to pass it. We know how the mechanism would work.’
A powerful cell of Cabinet Ministers, led by Environment Secretary Michael Gove and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, are increasingly alarmed by the prospect of a nodeal and are pushing No 10 to adopt a free trade deal with the EU along the lines of the one recently struck between Canada and Brussels.
In today’s Mail on Sunday, Lord Lamont writes that Mrs May’s attempt to push through her Chequers plan ‘is a big gamble, one that could end up destroying the Government and breaking up the party’.
A spokeswoman for Mrs Leadsom said: ‘ Andrea is supporting the Prime Minister to get a good deal for the UK that takes back control.’