PM deploys her ‘High Noon’ hero
May sends her ‘secret weapon’ Geoffrey Cox with pistols drawn to win over rebels before Commons vote... as she f ires off new warning over Brexit
THERESA MAY is to send in her ‘secret weapon’ in a last-ditch attempt to win over party rebels before her Commons ‘High Noon’ later this month.
Attorney General Geoffrey Cox will attempt to soothe worried Tory MPs in a pivotal speech on Tuesday – as Mrs May warns her opponents that ‘history will judge us all’ in the crunch votes to determine the fate of Brexit on February 27.
Barrister Mr Cox has emerged as one of Mrs May’s most accomplished performers – and one of the few in Cabinet able to talk round her most trenchant opponents.
It comes amid turmoil in her Brexit team, with sources telling The Mail on Sunday her most senior Brexit adviser Olly Robbins threatened to resign during a blazing row with a May ally at Downing Street.
Mr Robbins, who was overheard in a Brussels bar disclosing details of what he claimed was the Prime Minister’s Brexit strategy, is also understood to have been given a ‘severe dressing-down’ over his indiscretion – and effectively demoted by being ordered to report to Mr Cox rather than Mrs May.
Brexiteer Mr Cox, the Government’s most senior legal figure, is expected to set out the demands the Government hopes to secure on the Northern Ireland backstop – the last roadblock to an exit deal.
He will use his speech at a City law firm to plead with Tory MPs to trust him to secure a concession from the EU to eliminate the legal risk we could be trapped in the backstop indefinitely.
Tory whips are battling to stop Remainers, led by Tory Dominic Grieve, to force the Government to soften or delay Brexit – but in order to do so they need Brexiteers to rally behind the deal and any concessions granted by Brussels.
Mr Grieve hopes to wrestle control of the parliamentary agenda in ten days, when the Government has vowed to give MPs another amendable vote on Brexit.
Justice Secretary David Gauke hinted Mrs May hopes to have concluded further talks with the EU by then, saying: ‘I hope by the time we get to that point there will have been a deal reached with the EU and the House of Commons.’
In a highly personal letter to Tory MPs, released last night, Mrs May said: ‘History will judge us all for the parts we have played in this process. I believe that a country with our innate strengths, enviable resources and enormous talent can face the future with confidence that our best days lie ahead.’
But Mrs May, who will speak to the leader of every EU member state in the coming days, added: ‘A failure to make the compromises necessary to reach and take through Parliament a Withdrawal Agreement which delivers on the result of the referendum will let down the people who sent us to represent them and risk the bright future that they all deserve.’
She urged them to sacrifice ‘personal preferences in the higher service of the national interest and rise to the level of events in a way that restores the faith of the British people in our political process.’
Mrs May’s attempt to get on the Brexit front foot comes after Mr Robbins was overheard in a Brussels bar claiming she was waiting till the eleventh hour to force MPs to choose her deal or face a long delay to Brexit. It is understood to have infuriated the PM and Civil Service boss Sir Mark Sedwill.
A source said: ‘Olly is now widely seen as the roadblock to killing the backstop. He is refusing to renegotiate it in any meaningful way, but without doing that we aren’t going to get the votes.’
Mr Robbins has told friends he feels he has ‘gone as far as he can’ in Whitehall: they believe he has secured a lucrative job offer from a US investment bank and will be gone ‘sooner rather than later’.
If Mrs May fails to convince the Brexiteers to support her deal, her only hope is to persuade Labour MPs not to block it.
Sources say one option is to persuade Unite leader Len McCluskey to tell MPs backed by his union to abstain or back the deal – in return for a peerage. Mr McCluskey has previously said he would not take a seat in the Lords, but Labour sources say he has indicated he plans to stand down in the ‘near future’.
No10 last night denied Mr Robbins had threatened to walk out. However, friends of Mr Robbins do not dispute he was ‘upset’ by reports he had been sidelined.