KNIFE EDGE BREXIT
Pizza Club gang of Cabinet ministers told PM: Keep delay short or we quit
THERESA May abandoned plans for a long Brexit delay following warnings it would trigger a mass walkout by Eurosceptics in her Cabinet.
Downing Street announced her decision at dawn yesterday, hours after a group of Brexit-supporting ministers had gathered to discuss their next move.
The ministers, known as the ‘Pizza Club plotters’, held an emergency meeting in the Commons on Tuesday evening after the Prime Minister had earlier left them guessing on how long an extension she would seek from Brussels.
It was attended by Commons leader Andrea Leadsom, Environment Secretary Michael Gove, International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, who all voted Leave, as well as Brexit converts Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss.
Several of the ministers present indicated they were prepared to resign if Mrs May attempted to keep the country in the EU for a prolonged period.
But they withdrew their threats after she announced the delay would not go beyond June.
The group of eight ministers met the Prime Minister in Downing Street yesterday afternoon and told her she had their full backing, attempting to reassure her she had made the right decision.
As they left No 10, several mem-
bers of the delegation were smiling. Earlier on LBC radio, Mrs Leadsom had warned that it was ‘absolutely essential’ the country is out of the EU before European Parliament elections, which take place at the end of May.
‘It would be extraordinary for the people who voted to leave the EU to find us fielding candidates for these next elections,’ she said.
‘[The Prime Minister] is absolutely working her socks off to get to that point, so, in seeking a short extension, she and her Cabinet will be determined to get further progress on the Meaningful Vote so we can get her deal voted through in Parliament.’
During a fiery meeting of the Cabinet on Tuesday, the Commons leader had rounded on colleagues for losing their nerve and allowing the UK to be dragged into asking for a humiliating delay.
She said: ‘ This used to be the Cabinet that would deliver Brexit and now, from what I’m hearing, it’s not.’
Miss Truss also warned the meeting that failure to deliver Brexit soon would usher in a Labour Government, leading to ‘a barren land ruled by Jeremy Corbyn with all of us here in a gulag’.
Tory Brexiteers yesterday welcomed Mrs May’s decision not to seek a prolonged extension.
Jacob Rees-Mogg toasted French president Emmanuel Macron after it was reported he could veto any sort of Brexit delay.
‘If true, then Vive la France,’ the chairman of the European Research Group tweeted.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith warned that ‘any delay’ will cause problems for Conservative local election prospects in May.
The Chingford and Woodford Green MP told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘There is real, real resistance and concern in the Conservative Party, not just in Parliament but on a much wider spectrum around the country in the run-up to the May elections.
‘This will without question cannon into the May elections and cause real issues and concerns on the doorstep.
‘Any delay creates a bow wave of problems, not just for the Government here but for the governing party and, frankly, for all those people who voted to leave thinking... we would leave on March 29.
‘Any delay must be hinged around the idea of getting change to the deal, but any other reason simply doesn’t work.’ A majority of Con- servative MPs voted against any extension at all to Brexit in the Commons last week.
Another Brexit-supporting Conservative MP, Nadine Dorries, told BBC2’s Politics Live: ‘The fact that the Prime Minister is going to request an extension is in itself phenomenal because it is against what both the Labour and the Tory manifestos committed to during the 2017 election, which was that we would leave, we would honour the Brexit result, we would leave on March 29.
‘There are a lot of people who will not be happy with the request for this extension. How long is this extension? Will we be sending MEPs to be elected to the European Parliament?
‘I think if we do that then that will be again another crisis.’
‘The PM is working her socks off’ ‘It creates a bow wave of problems’