NOW LET HER GET ON WITH THE JOB!
May sees off plotters with two thirds of party behind her – but declares: I WON’T lead Tories at next election
THERESA May last night saw off a coup attempt by Eurosceptic rebels after promising to step down before the next election.
Conservative MPs voted by 200 to 117 for her to stay on as Tory leader and Prime Minister. Despite months of sabre-rattling by her hardline opponents, and deadlock over Brexit, almost two thirds of Tory MPs backed her.
Cabinet ministers immediately demanded that her opponents give her the breathing space and support to secure an ‘orderly exit’ from the EU. But Mrs May’s victory, which means she cannot be challenged again for at least 12 months, came at a price. She was forced to promise she will quit before the next general election, scheduled for 2022.
And the scale of yesterday’s revolt – more than a third of her MPs want her gone – will raise questions about how long she can stay in charge.
Looking chastened, Mrs May welcomed the result while acknowledging that ‘a significant number of colleagues did cast their votes against me’.
She said she would now pursue a ‘renewed mission – delivering the Brexit that people voted for, bringing the country back together, and building a country that truly works for everyone’. She said the situation called for ‘politicians on all sides coming
together and acting in the national interest’ – an apparent plea for help from Labour.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling described the result as a ‘strong vote of support’ for the PM.
Justice Secretary David Gauke said: ‘This was a very comfortable victory for Theresa May. Removing her would have been self-indulgent and irresponsible. I’m glad that a large majority agreed.’
But Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the hardline European Research Group which forced the vote, said the PM had suffered a ‘terrible result’ in which the ‘overwhelming majority of her backbenchers have voted against her’.
‘Of course I accept this result, but Theresa May must realise that under all constitutional norms she ought to go and see the Queen urgently and resign,’ he said.
Mrs May appealed to Tory MPs not to sack her at an emotionally-charged Commons meeting just minutes before the ballot opened last night.
She pledged she would not call a snap election, and said the party’s greatest duty was to prevent Jeremy Corbyn entering Downing Street.
One source at the meeting said she told MPs: ‘In my heart I would have loved to have led us into the next election, but I realise that we will need a new leader with new objectives for the 2022 election.’
Some ministers were said to be close to tears as the PM acknowledged that some in her own party want her gone rather than risk a repeat of last year’s disastrous election campaign. On a day of high political drama: Mrs May said she would demand fresh ‘legal and political’ assurances on the Irish backstop when she travels to a Brussels summit on Brexit today;
A Cabinet source said Mrs May was planning a snap reshuffle to stamp her authority on the Government; Tory whips sparked anger by reinstating suspended MPs Andrew Griffiths and Charlie Elphicke so that they could vote; Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, who was ousted in a similar confidence vote in 2003, revealed he had voted against the Prime Minister; Liam Fox said Mrs May’s Brexit agreement could be abandoned unless the EU offers concessions; Chancellor Philip Hammond said the vote would ‘flush out the extremists’ on the party’s Eurosceptic wing;
Business leaders voiced dismay at the decision to stage a leadership contest at the height of the Brexit negotiations;
European Research Group members vowed to continue a campaign of ‘guerilla warfare’ against the Government.
The vote came after Tory shop steward Sir Graham Brady announced that at least 48 MPs had written letters of no confidence in Mrs May, sparking a vote under the party’s leadership rules.
After the announcement yesterday morning, Mrs May pledged to fight the coup attempt with ‘everything I’ve got’.
She ducked questions about the exact date of her departure.
But the concession that she will not fight the next election will weaken her authority and spark a race to succeed. Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt and Amber Rudd will jostle for position against Eurosceptic former Cabinet colleagues Boris Johnson, David Davis and Dominic Raab.
Crispin Blunt, who wrote a letter of no confidence in Mrs May, urged rebels to back her, but said he still considered her Brexit plan a ‘ bad deal’. He said: ‘The leadership question is now behind us for a year and we must get behind Theresa May in delivering Brexit.’
Nadine Dorries, another critic of the PM, said: ‘It’s not the way I voted, however, I will fully respect the result.’
‘Self-indulgent and irresponsible’
FOR millions of moderate, pragmatic people across the nation, the unseemly events unfolding in West-minster must have appeared an act of monumental (and masochistic) self-indulgence.
A little more than 100 days before the biggest moment in Britain’s post-war history — when we leave the European Union in search of a bright new future — Tory MPs were shamefully embarking on a bout of navel-gazing.
A group of egotistical and power-hungry plotters sought to wield the blade against Theresa May, a leader who is admired by the great majority of Conservative voters for her unflagging efforts to achieve a sensible Brexit compromise.
The Prime Minister’s apparent crime? Failing, during tortuous months of painstaking negotiations with the EU, to secure a deal pure enough to satisfy the most ardent Brexiteer.
Her fate for tirelessly thrashing out a pact that both honours the referendum result and ensures that our departure will be orderly and amicable? Enduring the humiliation of a no- confidence vote — and possible ousting from No 10.
Fortunately, at 9pm yesterday, there was an indication that the irrational fever gripping the Tories might be lifting.
Votes were counted . . . and Mrs May had won with the vast majority of the party behind her — a victory for cool heads. For the mutineers, it was a painful blow to their ambitions as the coup fizzled out.
The result means she cannot be challenged for a year. But she placated rebels by announcing she would not stand at the next General Election.
Yet, out in the real world, where people have jobs, incomes and mortgages that rely on a stable government, the unsavoury antics must have been bewildering.
At a time of grave national crisis, was there anything more unhelpful and irresponsible than for a small group of Conservative rebels to waste time risking a leadership election?
Their attempted coup was a juvenile exercise in political posturing when the country is crying out for grown-up leadership.
To ordinary citizens, the bid to depose Mrs May — just as the most complicated negotiations ever undertaken by this country entered their endgame — was ill- conceived and deeply disloyal.
Business was also aghast at more disruption to UK PLC. In a stinging rebuke, the British Chambers of Commerce said it was ‘unacceptable’ that Westminster politicians focused on themselves, rather than the needs of the economy.
Heads of companies were ‘ tearing their hair out’, said the Institute of Directors — along with the rest of a frustrated, irritated nation.
Only this week, figures showed how the British economy is thriving: the number of people in work has hit record levels; unemployment is at a 40-year low; wages are rising at their highest level for nearly a decade; and GDP is in good health.
But investment has been put on ice because of Brexit unpredictability. Firms are desperate for the PM’s withdrawal agreement to succeed.
Let us be crystal clear: that is the best way to protect UK jobs — not destabilising them with acts of political folly. The Mail believes Tory rebels, for all their ambitions and machinations, must now sober up and start acting in the national interest.
It is impossible to put it better than Mrs May herself when she spoke in Downing Street yesterday morning, minutes after it was revealed that Tory backbenchers had submitted the 48 letters required for a no-confidence vote.
Displaying her trademark fortitude and resilience, she said a change of leadership would put the country’s ‘future at risk and create uncertainty when we can least afford it’.
‘Weeks spent tearing ourselves apart will only create more division, just as we should be standing together to serve our country. None of that would be in the national interest. The British people want us to get on with it.’ How right she is! The Mail is the first to admit Mrs May’s Brexit deal is not perfect. Yes, there are understandable concerns that Britain could be temporarily stuck in the Irish backstop and governed by EU rules — hindering our chance to do trade deals with economies in the rest of the world.
Yes, perhaps she could have played her hand better with Brussels — using as leverage the fact that we have the world’s fifth-largest economy, peerless security and intelligence agencies and extraordinary military muscle.
And yes, it was an error not to begin properly preparing two years ago for leaving the EU with no deal. That would have guaranteed food in shops, medicines in abundant supply and supply chains kept open so that firms can operate. But look at the over-whelming positives. She is ending free movement, gargantuan payments into EU coffers and the rule of the European Court of Justice over the UK — all manifesto commitments. She also insists that the backstop is not permanent.
With luck, her victory will focus minds in Brussels, when she travels there today, on what exactly is at stake.
Wringing out a better settlement would avoid a catastrophic no deal — calamitous to both the UK and EU.
It is undoubtedly a long shot — so far, the intransigent bloc has shown little interest in listening, let alone talking.
However, she must explain that she cannot break the Commons impasse without a legal ‘assurance’ that the backstop has an end date. She has no majority without DUP backing — and they have rejected the current terms.
In an ominous intervention, international trade secretary Liam Fox warned the Cabinet would block her deal without such an assurance.
Pragmatic MPs may conclude that a few years staying in sync with EU laws is a small price to pay to finally regain sovereignty.
It is also imperative she delivers a deal on security. The ghastly terror attack at a Christmas market in Strasbourg is another horrific spectre of what lies in store if UK-EU co-operation drops off a cliff edge.
But if she is successful, the British public, desperate to avoid the economic disaster of no deal or no Brexit at all, will doubtless approve.
So now the saboteurs must realise it is time to put Britain’s interests first and support Mrs May.
We know that the PM has indicated she will not serve a full term, so the rebels (if they have a shred of decency) will ditch the distracting and damaging internecine warfare that so appals the public. It is time to start behaving responsibly.
It needs emphasising that the Brexit hardliners have not come up with anything that the EU would accept.
Yesterday, in the febrile atmosphere of Westminster, ex-Cabinet ministers Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and Esther McVey all confirmed their interest in being the next leader. Even current members of the Cabinet, including Sajid Javid and Amber Rudd, were sizing up the curtains in Downing Street.
But, even if they had forced a vacancy, could any of them do the job more impressively or get a better deal from Brussels? Our poll shows today that two thirds of Tory councillors and three quarters of Tory voters think not.
Facts must be faced: the only person whose interests are served by ongoing instability is Jeremy Corbyn, who might end up in No 10 by default. Despite refusing to set out a clear position on Brexit, the Labour leader spuriously claims that he could magically get a better deal.
Are the Tories really ready to risk a Marxist, IRA- supporting Prime Minister who would destroy the economy, the Union and everything they hold dear?
If the party does not rally round the Prime Minister now that the bid to topple her has failed, it will plunge the country into a crisis.
Indeed, it may find itself fatally damaged and out of office for many years.
So this needs to be the moment when it unites.
The civil war needs to stop. If it doesn’t, they will never be forgiven.