Brexiteers are determined to chuck Chequers
THERESA MAY had better get used to hearing the words “chuck Chequers” uttered from Tory lips over the next few weeks. The curt suggestion about what should be done with the Prime Minister’s Brexit plan, named after her country retreat where it was agreed by the Cabinet, has become the slogan of her party’s Brexiteer wing. As the battle to try to force her to change course heats up, her critics plan to drop the phrase into their every public pronouncement.
During Parliament summer break MPs in the European Research Group (ERG) of Eurosceptic backbenchers have been in close contact plotting their “chuck Chequers” strategy. Hopes in Number 10 that some time away from the Westminster hot house may have cooled Eurosceptic ire appear certain to be dashed.
“The public have already started to pick up the chuck Chequers call,” one senior MP involved in the ERG’s strategy discussions told me. “We’re hearing voters talking about it on the doorsteps. The more they find out about the detail of the Chequers plan and what it means for the country’s future, the less they like it.”
Members of the backbench rebel group insist the Chequers plan, which proposes permanent close customs links with Brussels and a “common rulebook” of regulations, is a betrayal of the 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU.
“We’ve had Project Fear, now we’ve got Project Con because Chequers is a con trick on the public. It means we are not really leaving the EU,” the MP said.
Brexiteers are determined to take the “chuck Chequers” message far beyond Westminster through a series of public meetings and a social media blitz.
MRS MAY’S critics point to opinion polling suggesting that concessions to Brussels are damaging Tory support in swathes of the country that voted to quit the EU in the referendum. “Tory MPs in Leave constituencies who might be hoping for a quiet life by going along with the Prime Minister’s plan could start to feel very uncomfortable about their electoral future,” the ERG source said.
Senior Brexiteers have also been in touch with Tory association chairmen and other local party officials over the summer. They claim the overwhelmingly anti-Brussels Conservative grassroots are in a mutinous mood. Eurosceptic MPs are also plotting a campaign of parliamentary guerrilla warfare aiming to wreck the Chequers proposals when the Commons returns next month. A series of backbench motions and rebellions on key votes are also being prepared.
Tory whips can expect some testing times this autumn. Cabinet ministers are braced for mayhem at the party conference in Birmingham in October with activists expected to flock to fringe meetings featuring Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and other senior Eurosceptics.
ONE Cabinet minister’s aide said: “We are planning to check into the conference hotel, ram a chair up against the door and stay barricaded inside.”
Mrs May can take some comfort from the fact that her Eurosceptic critics are switching the focus of their attack to her policy rather than attempting to force her out. Instead, they want to force her back to the principles of a clean Brexit she set out in her speech at Lancaster House in January 2017.
Talks of letters to the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers demanding a party leadership contest have quietened over the summer. “The priority has got to be to get the Prime Minister to alter her course,” the ERG insider said, adding: “She must change for the good of the country.”
Number 10 loyalists must be hoping the Prime Minister enjoyed plenty of rest and bracing Alpine air during her summer walking holiday in Switzerland. Mrs May will need to be fully energised to survive the coming onslaught from the “chuck Chequers” brigade.