PULL TOGETHER BEHIND THERESA
Tory grandees say party must unite – or risk election defeat
SENIOR Tories and Cabinet loyalists yesterday rallied around Theresa May – warning malcontents they risked Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister if they tried to oust her.
Backbencher Johnny Mercer suggested the ‘window is closing’ on Mrs May’s premiership as embittered ex-minister Nicky Morgan claimed the PM should have been removed last year.
But senior party figures lined up to back Mrs May. Culture Secretary Matt Hancock told his colleagues that allowing Labour into No10 would undo all their achievements in Government.
He said: ‘I think we should all pull together and pull behind the Prime Minister. There are challenges facing the country that we need to rise to together, there’s also some huge opportunities that we need to take advantage of.
‘The biggest risk to our country would be a socialist government that would send us backwards and would undermine all of the work that we have done to get the economy going – with a record number of jobs – and in a whole host of areas where we have made progress.’
International Trade Secretary Liam Fox told Bloomberg that Tories ‘would be foolish to do anything to destabilise the Government and the Prime Minister’. And Charles Walker, vice-chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 committee, dismissed rumours that the number of MPs who had sent letters calling for Mrs May to resign was approaching 48 – the figure required for a leadership contest.
He told BBC Radio 4’s World At One: ‘It is utter rubbish. The only person who knows whether there is one letter, ten letters or 20 letters is the chairman of the 1922 committee, Sir Graham Brady.
‘Nobody knows but Sir Graham Brady and if you asked him he wouldn’t tell you.’
Mr Walker said any Tory MP calling for Mrs May to set a date for her departure ‘really needs to sit in a darkened room and put a cold towel over their heads’.
He added: ‘We cannot have continued challenging to the Prime Minister. It seems to happen every two weeks, we have these spasms within the party where there is this rocking of the boat, and I simply cannot understand really what is motivating this small minority of colleagues to behave in this way.’
But Mrs Morgan – sacked as education secretary when Mrs May became PM – wrote for the ConservativeHome website: ‘There were times last year for the Prime Minister to step aside – immediately after the June 2017 election, or after party conference.
‘That didn’t happen. Maybe the Cabinet should have asked her to go, but they didn’t.’
However, Justine Greening, Mrs Morgan’s successor at the Department for Education, gave her backing to Mrs May despite having been sacked a fortnight ago. She told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I remain a strong backer of the Prime Minister.
‘I’ve been very disappointed to see the soundings off. I think they need to stop and I think people need to get behind her.’
At the Resolution Foundation think-tank, Mr Mercer said: ‘How long has the Prime Minister got? I am of the view that any sort of change of leadership is not helpful at the moment and I don’t support that. But, I do think the window is closing, because politics can be quite a brutal game. At the moment I do feel we are slightly struggling with a message and with a vision.’
Tory Nigel Evans called on Mrs May’s Cabinet heavyweights to be more supportive. He said: ‘Socks come in pairs – and Boris Johnson and Philip Hammond should each put one in their mouths.’
‘Need to sit in a darkened room’