PM could back down on exit date
Theresa May is likely to be forced to drop a bid to enshrine the Brexit date in law after Tory rebels warned of a second defeat in a week.
Despite grassroots anger over their conduct, the emboldened rebels told the Prime Minister to back down or face another damaging Parliamentary showdown.
Downing street had been reluctant to concede over fixing the date as March 29, 2019. Mrs May had said she would not ‘tolerate’ dissent on the issue.
But senior Tories admitted she was likely to be forced to withdraw the amendment, due to be voted on next week, particularly if Chief Whip Julian smith tells her she faces certain defeat.
Last night, the 11 MPs faced deselection calls over the decision to join with Labour to force through demands for Parliament to have a veto over the EU deal.
David hayes, Tory councillor in the Loughborough constituency of former education secretary Nicky Morgan, accused her of trying to ‘reverse Brexit’, adding: ‘We need to get on with
‘Shabby disrespect for democracy’
Brexit and stop all this. This weakens Britain’s position in the negotiating stakes. This is not really about having a parliamentary vote in 2019 … they are trying to reverse Brexit.’
richard haddock, Tory councillor in sarah Wollaston’s Totnes constituency, said: ‘I’m concerned about the 11 MPs playing games. Who elected sarah Wollaston? Forty-four per cent of her electorate comes from Brixham and that was one of the highest counts for Leave – 88 per cent voted out …
‘These MPs are stirring things up … They are all helping Labour greatly … I don’t think sarah Wollaston is listening to anybody.’
Tory MeP David Campbell-Bannerman branded the rebels a ‘disgrace’ and claimed several local Tory associations had started to discuss deselection.
he said: ‘They are showing a shabby disrespect for democracy and the largest vote we have had in British history … They stood on a manifesto to have a smooth Brexit so there’s no principle … It is purely about trying to frustrate Brexit, which is shameful.’
The rebels were Mrs Morgan, Dr Wollaston, ex- ministers Dominic Grieve, Kenneth Clarke, anna soubry, stephen hammond, Bob Neill, Jonathan Djanogly and sir Oliver heald, and backbenchers heidi allen and antoinette sandbach.
Mr Grieve, former attorney general, said he had received death threats after rebelling. .
Miss sandbach was confronted by an LBC radio listener accusing her of ‘betraying democracy’. The caller, giving his name as richard, said: ‘We wanted a clean break from europe, not this messy situation.’
The MP, whose eddisbury constituents voted 52 per cent Leave, said she had been clear with them that she would demand a ‘meaningful vote’ on the deal as her price for backing Brexit. she said she was concerned with ‘ bringing powers back to Parliament rather than the hands of the Government’.
Mr Clarke insisted the vote was ‘ nothing to do with stopping Brexit’. But ex-minister andrew Murrison said it was ‘everything to do with frustrating the referendum’.
some Tories blamed Government whips, saying they offered concessions to the rebels too late. But a spokesman for Mrs May insisted she retained ‘full confidence’ in her chief whip.
÷The archbishop of Canterbury yesterday called for a truce in the political war over Brexit to match one that happened during the First World War.
‘We find in Christmas 1914 there was a ceasefire,’ the Most rev Justin Welby told the BBC’s Today. ‘It would be very good to have a ceasefire from insult.’
But the rev Jules Gomes, of Douglas, Isle of Man, said the remarks were ‘hypocrisy in the highest’ because ‘his own church regularly trades vitriolic insults in the General synod’.