May survives but faces fresh battle in Brussels

PM keeps her job but faces struggle securing Brexit deal

British Prime Minister Theresa May is a wounded leader after surviving a noconfidence vote — she is now immune from a leadership challenge by her party for a year but faces a Parliament hostile to her Brexit deal and European leaders who wonder how long she she will remain in office.

May yesterday survived a humiliating challenge to her leadership, beating back a no-confidence vote triggered by rebels in her Conservative Party who oppose her compromise deal on how to leave the European Union.

She won the party-only vote by 200 to 117 — comfortably surpassing the threshold of the simple majority of 158 votes she needed to hold on to power. But it was hardly a victory.

May’s survival offered measured relief in the rest of the EU, where leaders have little option other than to hope May can hold on and deliver the Brexit deal by March 29. Many countries have sped up emergency preparation in recent weeks, fearing that Britain’s political paralysis will lead to a chaotic exit from the bloc.

“Glad about the outcome of tonight’s vote,” the Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz wrote on Twitter. “Our shared goal is to avoid a no-deal scenario.”

May had warned rebellious lawmakers that ousting her would not make getting a better Brexit deal any easier and would instead bring delay and confusion.

“I will contest that vote with everything I’ve got,” said May, speaking outside her Downing Street residence, before the vote. “I stand ready to finish the job.”

Afterwards May said she was “pleased to have received the backing

of my colleagues” but acknowledged that “a significant number” had voted against her in the ballot.

“I have listened to what they said,” she added.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, an ally, said the result showed that May “has the support of her party”. “This is a clear statement by the parliamentary party they want her to go forward, they want her to

lead us through Brexit,” he told Sky News.

But pro-Brexit lawmaker Mark Francois said the result was “devastating” for May, who has lost the support of a third of her party in Parliament. “If I were her, I wouldn’t be pleased with this at all,” Francois said. “I think she needs to think very carefully about what to do now.”

May and her Brexit plan have been pummeled for weeks by members of Parliament, both from her own party and the opposition. But faced with the prospect of losing their leader in a noconfidence vote, a long string of top Tories publicly declared their support for her — suggesting that she could survive the day.

In an 11th-hour meeting with her backbench, May told Tory members that she would not stand for election before the public again.

The failed challenge to May’s leadership does not settle the ongoing chaos over Britain’s future relationship with Europe.

May announced on Monday that she was delaying a parliamentary vote on her deal, after she concluded that the accord faced a humiliating defeat in the House of Commons. May spent Tuesday meeting with Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU leaders, trying to concoct new concessions that might appease British lawmakers who oppose her Brexit withdrawal agreement.

For the Tories to challenge May, ostensibly their party leader, they needed to send at least 48 letters — equalling 15 per cent of the 315 Conservative lawmakers — to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee in Parliament.

Brady told the BBC that he informed the Prime Minister on Wednesday that the threshold of 48 letters had been reached.

Before she survived the noconfidence vote, May had advised her fellow Tories to look at the calendar. “The new leader wouldn’t have time to renegotiate a withdrawal agreement and get the legislation through Parliament by the 29th of March,” the date when Britain is set to leave the EU, she said.

The leader of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, expressed frustration with the political squabbling. She tweeted: “Today is a stark reminder that the UK is facing chaos and crisis entirely because of a vicious civil war within the Tory party. What a self-centred bunch they are. They all need to go, not just the PM.”