Rees-Mogg’s U-turn on Theresa

ARCH-BRExITEER Jacob Rees-Mogg claimed yesterday that he has full confidence in the Prime Minister – just days after demanding that she go to the Queen and resign.

Speaking in the Commons, he congratulated Theresa May on winning last week’s vote of no confidence in her leadership.

This is despite the fact that last Wednesday he rejected her victory in the poll of Tory MPs, saying it was a ‘terrible result’ and that it was clear she had lost the confidence of the Commons.

Mr Rees-Mogg sparked the leadership vote by putting in his letter of no confidence in November.

Just minutes after it was announced last Wednesday that Mrs May had won by 200 votes to 117, Mr Rees-Mogg argued that the ‘overwhelming majority of her backbenchers voted against her’.

He said at the time: ‘Theresa May must realise that under all constitutional norms she ought to go and see the Queen urgently and resign. She doesn’t have the confidence of the House of Commons and should make way for someone who does.’

But yesterday in the Commons he completely changed tack, telling the Prime Minister she had his full confidence. Mr Rees-Mogg, the Tory MP for North-East Somerset, congratulated Mrs May ‘on winning the confidence of the Conservatives in this House last week’, adding that he wanted to ‘assure her that she therefore commands my confidence too’.

He said he did not back another Brexit referendum, saying it was ‘better known as the losers’ vote’, and would be ‘undemocratic’ and ‘divisive’. The chairman of the proBrexit European Research Group added: ‘It would be very hard to deny a second [independence] referendum in Scotland, if we had a second referendum on membership of the European Union.’

Mrs May thanked him for his support, saying the UK has ‘accepted the decision’ in numerous referendums over the decades and not gone back to the people.

Yesterday Tory shop steward Sir Graham Brady revealed the threshold for the no-confidence vote was reached twice in one day.

The chairman of the Conservatives’ backbench 1922 Committee received the 48th letter from a Tory MP on Tuesday morning last week – only for, moments later, another MP to withdraw the letter they submitted some time earlier.

Writing in Parliament’s The House magazine, Sir Graham, who never revealed the number of letters he was holding, said a third MP came to him later in the day, finally reaching the tally.