Operation Save Dave
Tory MPs will flood airwaves to back Cameron even if he falls short in May
SENIOR Tories are secretly planning to shore up David Cameron’s leadership if he fails to win an overall majority in May.
Loyalist MPs are being privately urged to form a ‘praetorian guard’ around the Prime Minister to protect him from Right-wingers plotting to move against him if he falls short.
They are being asked to hit the airwaves in the hours following the election on May 7 to ‘save Dave’ by making it clear they want Mr Cameron to stay on.
No10 fears disgruntled MPs on the influential backbench 1922 Committee may use a meeting on the Monday after the election to push for a leadership contest.
MPs thought to be loyal are being asked discreetly to promise they will help nip any mutiny in the bud.
One MP told the Guardian: ‘There is an attempt to form a praetorian guard round David. We are being asked to speak up for continuity and to say that our best option is to keep our leader... to counter the malcontents. It would be extremely foolish to replace David. He out- polls our party. The Right just obsess about their issues and never look to the bigger picture.’
The leadership denies it is directly involved in the ‘save Dave’ initiative, but a number of senior ministers, including Chancellor George Osborne and Chief Whip Michael Gove, are understood to have had informal conversations with MPs.
Tory high command is even preparing to declare a ‘moral victory’ if – as some polls suggest – Mr Cameron secures more votes than Labour but wins fewer seats.
Mr Cameron will come under intense pressure to step down if he loses to Mr Miliband, whom many Tories rate as the worst Labour leader since Michael Foot.
One Tory MP said Mr Cameron ‘won’t last five minutes’ unless he manages to retain the keys to Downing Street in May. ‘He either wins, or he goes,’ the MP said. ‘He has said himself that if he can’t beat Miliband he doesn’t deserve to be in this game, and he’s right.’
But some senior ministers believe Mr Cameron should stay on if Mr Miliband is only able to cobble together a fragile coalition.
In this scenario, they fear the party could be plunged into a desta- bilising leadership battle in the runup to a second election that could take place in the autumn. The news came as George Osborne last night predicted he will be re-appointed as Chancellor if the Tories win a second term.
He said he did not think this week’s Budget would be his last, suggesting he believes the Tories will win in May – and that David Cameron will let him keep his job.
There has been speculation that he might move to the Foreign Office to lead the renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU. But he told LBC radio: ‘This decision belongs to the British people. But I have to tell you, when I was about to walk out the door of No11 and I thought “Is this the last time?” I honestly think it will not be.’
David Cameron has backed down on plans to force universities to ban hate preachers from speaking on campus. Universities were expected to create anti-extremism policies to stop vulnerable youngsters being exposed to fanatics. But following a Coalition row, the Tories have dropped threats to punish universities that did not comply.
The jihadi twin caught trying to enter Syria had already had a seven-month stay there with her toddler son, it emerged yesterday.
Jamila henry, 21, lived with two-year- old Mustafa in the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa until just before Christmas.
She came back to Britain to leave him with family before trying to return to Syria. On Monday Turkish police picked her up in the capital Ankara.
henry managed to flee the UK for a second time despite being on the radar of MI5, whose agents tried to recruit her.
They interviewed her, gave her a smartphone and repeatedly contacted her. But, under their noses, she was able to steal her glamorous identical twin’s passport and head back to the conflict zone.
The astonishing lapse comes weeks after it emerged that Mohammed emwazi – the Islamic State butcher called Jihadi John – was known to the security services for five years and they had tried to recruit him too.
Despite being classed as a priority target, emwazi managed to travel to the Middle east and start his reign of terror in Syria. Michael Adebolajo, one of the killers of Lee Rigby in Woolwich, was also courted by MI5.
Last night, a friend of the henry family lashed out at ‘ bumbling’ MI5 officers, accusing them of trying to cover up their mistakes.
‘They are a joke,’ said the source. ‘They keep calling everyone to find out what happened and telling them what they should and shouldn’t say to people.
‘They were all over the family for months after Jamila came back but were left whistling in the wind when she disappeared again.’
henry returned in December under pressure from relatives including her estranged husband. A source close to the family said: ‘her husband had no idea she was going to take Mustafa to Syria. he was extremely glad when they both returned safely.
‘he and his parents were distraught and traumatised in the months the baby was missing.
‘he in particular struggled not knowing where his son was or
‘Left whistling in the wind’
whether or not he was safe. It was a testing time.
‘ he suffered many sleepless nights fearing he would never see his child again. he had no contact with Jamila. All he could do was send messages via her family pleading for her to return his son and just prayed that his pleas would reach her.’ henry was stopped and questioned for up to nine hours by MI5 officers and detectives from Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command when she returned home with Mustafa in December.
They released her without her being arrested or charged in the belief that she would co- operate with them as they investigated her movements and contacts in Syria.
henry converted to Islam in her teens and moved to east London where she had an arranged marriage with her husband, a Muslim Turkish Cypriot. The couple soon had their child but their relationship collapsed when henry began spouting radical beliefs. her latest journey to Turkey was on the passport of her ‘ south London party girl’ twin sister Jalila.
Yesterday henry remained under arrest at a highsecurity central London police station after being flown back from Turkey to Luton airport on Thursday. She is being held on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism, an offence which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
She is the latest woman to flee the UK to join the barbaric terrorist group as a jihadi bride and support its frontline fighters.
Last month three ‘straight A’ east London schoolgirls, aged 15 and 16, abandoned their families to travel to Syria via Turkey.
They were following in the footsteps of a friend who joined Islamic State in December. All four went to the same Bethnal Green school.