END OF THE ROAD
May set to say tomorrow when she’ll go Calamitous day as Cabinet mutinies and Leadsom quits Tories braced for wipeout in Euro elections
THERESA May is set to announce her resignation following a dramatic Cabinet revolt yesterday.
She is expected to reveal details of her departure tomorrow after ministers savaged her concessions to Labour over Brexit. Andrea Leadsom piled pressure on the Prime Minister by announcing her own resignation from the Cabinet last night. In a parting blast, the Commons Leader said she could not stomach the latest version of Mrs May’s Brexit deal, with its offer of a potential second referendum.
It is understood that Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt and David Mundell will use ministerial meetings with Mrs May today to warn that they also consider the Withdrawal Agreement Bill unacceptable as it stands.
Allies of the Prime Minister said she acknowledged her time was up. ‘The chances of the Bill coming forward now are very slender – there is too much opposition,’ said one. ‘That was her last move – I think she accepts that.’
Other ministers are said to be ready to quit too if the Prime Minister tries to cling to power after today’s Euro elections. The Tories are set to be decimated by Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.
Mrs May has agreed to meet Sir Graham Brady, who chairs the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, tomorrow to discuss a leadership poll.
She refused to see rebel ministers yesterday, prompting Brexiteer Iain Duncan Smith to quip: ‘The sofa is up against the door – she’s not leaving.’
At one stage, some aides believed the
Prime Minister was on the verge of quitting on the spot – and even started preparations for a resignation statement in Downing Street.
But chief whip Julian Smith later told the 1922 Committee that Mrs May intended to campaign in today’s elections and would instead meet Sir Graham tomorrow.
Sources said meetings with senior ministers were postponed because Mrs May was having her regular audience with the Queen, who she was expected to brief on her intentions.
Conservative MPs were in uproar over the Prime Minister’s decision to seek Labour support in the hope of getting her deal through the House of Commons at the fourth attempt.
Whitehall insiders said the legislation that Mrs May announced on Tuesday might now never see the light of day. Another ally said: ‘We completely understand what has happened over the course of the last 24
‘We cannot put it to a vote’ ‘Ministers were aghast’
hours. She wants to be able to say that, in her own words, in short order. You will see that clearly when the elections are done.’ In other developments: Mrs May made a final bid to sell her deal to the Commons, telling a half full chamber that MPs would eventually have to accept compromise if they were to deliver on their ‘duty’ to take Britain out of the EU;
The 1922 Committee reportedly held a secret ballot on changing rules to allow a fresh confidence vote in the leader;
Michael Gove said Mrs May would have to ‘reflect’ on the backlash against her Brexit plans before deciding whether to continue with them;
The number of Tory MPs saying they would vote against Mrs May’s ‘new deal’ doubled to 76 in the 24 hours after she announced the new package;
Jeremy Corbyn ruled out backing the compromise plan, saying: ‘No Labour MP can vote for a deal on the promise of a Prime Minister who only has days left in her job’;
Conservative MPs sent in letters of no confidence in Mrs May to Sir Graham, with former minister Tim Loughton even posting a picture of his on social media.
Mr Duncan Smith warned that Donald Trump could cancel his planned state visit to the UK at the start of next month because of the chaos at the top of government;
The Conservative Home website urged grass- roots supporters not to vote Tory in today’s elections unless Mrs May resigned immediately;
Former chancellor Kenneth Clarke rounded on Eurosceptic MPs, saying they had treated Mrs May abominably and ‘ campaigned harder against her leadership than against the EU’.
The Tory revolt came after ministers were briefed in detail on the proposed concessions to Labour, which also include the option of a temporary customs union.
Several were aghast at provisions in the legislation guaranteeing an act of parliament to deliver a second referendum if MPs voted for one.
Sources told the Mail that Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt joined Mrs Leadsom, Mr Javid, Mr Hunt and Mr Mundell in warning No 10 they could not support the legislation in its current form.
One Cabinet minister said: ‘A lot of ministers are going to struggle to vote for this. I would certainly struggle with it as it is. It is opening the door to a second referendum – why would we do it?
‘We cannot put this to a vote – it would expose exactly how split the party is and make life even harder for her successor.
‘I don’t think anyone in Cabinet is ready to call for her to go. People still want her to make her own mind up and leave on her own terms.
‘But there is a lot of pressure to pull the Withdrawal Bill – and that amounts to calling for her to resign.’
Foreign Secretary Mr Hunt will today urge Mrs May to pull the planned vote on the legislation, which No 10 said was still pencilled in for the first week of June.
Sources close to Mr Javid said the Home Secretary would demand that the Prime Minister strip out the provisions for a second referendum altogether before going ahead with the legislation.
Scottish Secretary Mr Mundell is also said to be unwilling to accept anything that opens the door to a second vote, arguing it would fuel demands for Scottish independence.
Mrs May also faced a backbench revolt yesterday, with MPs demanding that the 1922 Committee tear up its own rules to allow an immediate vote of confidence in the PM. Sir Graham came under fire at a stormy meeting of the committee after warning that a rule change would set a dangerous precedent.
One MP accused him of going native. Another branded him a ‘jellyfish’.
With polls suggesting the Conservatives could get just 7 per cent of the vote today, calls for Mrs May to go extended beyond the Tory Eurosceptic wing.
Leading moderate Tom Tugendhat said Mrs May had ‘to go – and without delay’.
‘She must announce her resignation after the European elections. And the Conservative Party must fast track the leadership process to replace her,’ he insisted.
Attention is expected to turn quickly to the timetable for Mrs May’s departure and the race to succeed her. Mrs Leadsom’s resignation last night appeared to put the final nail in the PM’s political coffin.
In her resignation letter, she told Mrs May that repeated compromises meant her plans did not represent Brexit in any meaningful sense.
But a Cabinet minister loyal to the PM rounded on Brexiteer leadership candidates such as Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab for encouraging their supporters to oppose the Bill, saying: ‘They have got their heads in the sand.’
Former Tory minister Nick Boles said: ‘I never thought Theresa May would be a good PM. I resigned as a minister the day she took office. But the sight of her former acolytes and boosters falling over themselves to bring her down is truly sickening.’
IT couldn’t be clearer – Theresa May’s tenure as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party is at an end. Despite her valiant efforts to deliver an honourable Brexit, she has finally run out of road. Her Withdrawal Agreement Bill is seemingly dead in the water, and as events in Downing Street yesterday so brutally demonstrated, her support and authority have evaporated.
This is a woman who has always been driven by duty, and whose honest search for compromise was thwarted on all sides.
It’s essential now that she be allowed to leave No 10 with the dignity she deserves – probably either during or just after the coming weekend.
But before that moment arrives, the Tories must endure the ignominy of a probable wipe- out in the farcical European elections.
On February 1, 2017, the Commons agreed by a majority of 384 to pull Britain out of the EU by March 29 this year. Yet here we are today, two months after that deadline, being asked to elect a new raft of MEPs.
This represents the most spectacular failure by our political class to honour the biggest democratic mandate in UK history. But still the two main parties are calling on voters to support them in this orphan election.
Across the country, the response to that call is a resounding: ‘You must be joking!’
Thanks to a combination of division and incompetence, the Tories have failed to achieve the Brexit they promised. Meanwhile Labour has become so confused that it no longer knows whether it wants to leave the EU or not – with or without a second referendum.
On every level, they have failed the people. Is it any wonder voters want to give them all a bloody nose?
They have been grievously let down and they are angry. Very, very angry.
Enter Nigel Farage, who boldly claims he can slay the Brussels dragon and lead us to sunlit uplands.
After two years of stasis it’s a seductive message, which is why he is riding so high in the polls.
A survey yesterday put his Brexit Party at 37 per cent, with Labour on 13 and the Conservatives on a disastrous 7.
But for all his Everyman rhetorical gifts, Mr Farage’s prospectus is an illusion.
Though his party may be good for a protest vote, the idea that it is the longterm answer to Britain’s problems is simply wrong.
They are no more than a loose affiliation of single-issue obsessives. Nobody seriously believes they could govern the country.
So, disaffected Tory supporters must try to look beyond their righteous anger.
Despite their manifold faults and divisions, the Conservatives represent the only realistic chance of keeping a malign Labour/ SNP coalition away from the levers of power.
If they are annihilated now, a fate far worse than any Brexit outcome may await the nation.
For their part, Tory MPs must prove they are worthy of trust. And their new leader – whoever that may be – must offer a positive, optimistic vision for Brexit and beyond.
This Government has been paralysed long enough. Action is urgently required on social care, knife crime, schools, and, as the current steel crisis demonstrates, our industrial strategy.
Barring miracles, this election will be a total humiliation for the Tories. But the Mail believes that with unity and strong leadership, they can rise from the ashes – not least because they have such a remarkable economic story to tell.
If natural Conservative supporters can find it in themselves to keep the faith, a great revival could be just over the horizon. The prize – for all of us – could hardly be greater.