So much for the lions’ den! May sees off plotters
THERESA May last night received the overwhelming backing of her MPs after she made an emotional plea to be allowed to deliver Brexit for the nation.
The Prime Minister was greeted with loud cheers and banging of desks at a meeting of the Conservative backbench 1922 committee – days after being warned to ‘bring her own noose’ to the ‘show trial’.
Michael Fabricant said: ‘It wasn’t like Daniella in the lion’s den. It was more like a petting zoo.’ The Brexit-backing Tory MP added that after the ‘love-in’ he now believed Mrs May could lead the party in the next election in 2022.
Former home secretary Amber Rudd said the Prime Minister had ‘won the room’ and secured her position with a ‘heartfelt’ speech.
At the weekend, a series of anonymous briefings from backbench critics appeared in newspapers talking about Mrs May being knifed to death or hung.
One former minister was quoted as saying: ‘The moment is coming when the knife gets heated, stuck in her front and twisted. She’ll be dead soon.’
But yesterday the vicious attacks backfired as any plot to oust her appeared to have melted away.
Mrs May gave a ‘passionate and emotional’ speech to the MPs before answering more than a dozen questions.
As she left the meeting, Miss Rudd praised Mrs May, saying: ‘She got a warm welcome, she spoke quite emo- tionally about why she was doing this for the good of the country and how it was important that the public and our party members realise that we are behind her and that we all wanted the same thing – which is to lead in the best interests of the country.’
Asked if Mrs May looked emotional, Miss Rudd said: ‘Well she looked like she really minded, it wasn’t reading from a script. She was talking frankly and honestly from the heart about why she was doing this and why it mattered.’
Miss Rudd said a lot of MPs condemned the ‘really nasty language’ that had been used in the run-up to the meeting. ‘There was a lot of uncomfortable feeling about the language that was used apparently in the papers, and obviously pointing out that we needed to hold together and deliver based on the fact that the real danger to this country is from the Labour party – the real extremists,’ she added.
‘People have heard about the letters and read about things going on, but I think they got a lot of confidence back from the feeling she was able to win the room and deliver something quite personal and emotional about why she was committed to doing it, despite being quite frank about the difficulties that were still there.
‘People spoke very freely about their concerns... but a lot of people came back to the fact that they backed her in delivering for the country and the government.’ Mr Fabricant said: ‘I think we all realise that we need at this point… to hold together.’
He added: ‘She did not have to appeal for unity because everybody else did. Lots of people were saying how the language used over the last weekend was disgusting and misogynistic and the rest of it. I think we all felt that way.
‘She lives to fight another day I am quite sure, and possibly the next election. I would not be surprised. If she gets a good deal she will be a heroine. It was a love-in.’
Earlier, at Prime Minister’s Questions, Mrs May denied reports that the European Court of Justice will be the final arbiter in cases arising from Brexit.
She said the Government would ensure the court does not have jurisdiction in the UK in the future, after she was pressed on the issue by Brexiteer Tory backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Yesterday, one of Mrs May’s fiercest critics, Andrew Bridgen, made the bizarre claim that Number 10 had planted the vicious quotes about the Prime Minister.
The Tory MP, who in July became one of the first to announce he had submitted a letter of no confidence in Mrs May, told Sky News: ‘It was not me and I’ve thought about it and the only people that suited, those sort of comments which were very unhelpful, bad politics and have got a lot of sympathy for the Prime Minister is Number 10.
‘ I wouldn’t be surprised if Number 10 didn’t put those words out themselves, knowing exactly the way the Press and the public would react.’
A Downing Street source said Mr Bridgen’s allegation was ‘as offensive as it is categorically and completely wrong’. Ahead of yesterday’s meeting, Nigel Evans, a member of the 1922 executive committee, said that holding a leadership contest at this time ‘would be a disaster’.
Fellow Tory Simon Hart said: ‘ Everybody following this is expecting us to behave in a sober, resilient, measured and professional way. Pushing the Prime Minister overboard in the final stages of negotiations does not really match that.’
‘She was talking from the heart’