Hold your nerve Brexit backed by
THERESA MAY has been told to hold her nerve against the “enemies” of Brexit as she enters a defining week of her leadership.
The Prime Minister is facing pressures on all sides with MPs defecting, Cabinet ministers threatening to vote to delay the departure and Brussels refusing to shift on the Irish backstop.
She will be urged to take no-deal off the table this week, with the threat of a ministerial rebellion and the risk of more MPs quitting to join newly formed The Independent Group.
Business minister Greg Clark, work and pensions minister Amber Rudd, and justice minister David Gauke have all signalled that they may side with rebels and opposition parties to stop a no-deal departure.
But senior Brexiteers insist the Prime Minister must keep her cool and not throw away her key no-deal negotiating card.
The country must leave on March 29, they said, as the British people would not accept “defeat at the hands of the EU”.
Mrs May yesterday pledged to grassroots Tories at the National Conservative Convention that she would “finish the job”.
She said: “Our focus to deliver Brexit must be absolute. We must not, and I will not, frustrate what was the largest democratic exercise in this country’s history.
“In the very final stages of this process the worst thing we could do is lose our focus.”
Party activists also backed a motion stating: “Another referendum, a delay beyond the European elections, taking no-deal off the table or not leaving at all would betray the 2016 people’s vote and damage democracy and our party for a generation.”
This will be seen as a warning THERE were many objections to the Government’s withdrawal agreement when it was rejected by the Commons on January 15, but by far the greatest was to the “Irish backstop” that would keep the UK tethered indefinitely in the customs union.
Under the “Brady amendment”, the Government was instructed by the House to seek to replace the backstop with “alternative arrangements”. Negotiations with the EU have been continuing and there may be a vote on a revised withdrawal agreement later this week.
If it is rejected, the Prime Minister should continue her efforts to secure an Agreement that is acceptable.
She should also resist calls from within and outside the Conservative Party to “take no-deal off the table”. Because to do so would be the greatest folly possible.
Last week, three members of the Conservative Parliamentary party joined The Independent Group of former Labour MPs.
In a resignation letter, they asserted that the Conservative Party was “in the grip” of the European Research Group (ERG) and had shifted so far to the right that it “no longer reflected the values that they [the defectors] shared with millions of people throughout the United Kingdom”.
The truth, however, is that the ERG is standing up for what 17.4 million British voters decided in 2016.
The defectors voted to trigger the Article 50 process and stood on a Tory election manifesto that stated that “we continue to believe that no deal is better than a bad deal for the UK”.
shot aimed at Tory ministers and MPs thinking of backing a plan by Labour’s Yvette Cooper and the Conservatives’ Oliver Letwin which could lead to Brexit being delayed if no deal is agreed by the middle of next month. There is concern that the pair may be able to secure enough crossparty support to win a House of Commons showdown on Wednesday.
Mrs May called for all Conservatives to support her but said no one would be de-selected for their Brexit views.
She said: “We are not a party of purges and retribution. We called a referendum and let people express their views – so we should not be seeking to
de-select any of our MPs because of their views on Brexit.
“Our party is rightly a broad church – on that and other issues. And we will only save our country from the threat of Jeremy Corbyn if we remain one.”
Mrs May will push EU leaders at today’s summit in Egypt’s Sharm El Sheikh to deliver the concessions that would give her Brexit deal a chance of getting through the Commons.
She needs to address Brexiteer fears that the backstop plan to prevent a hard border in Ireland could lead to the UK being trapped in a customs union.
But she also knows MPs who want the UK to have a close relationship with the EU after Brexit will attempt to take control of the exit process if the country looks on course to leave without a deal.
Sir Bernard Jenkin, who refused to back John Major over the Maastricht Treaty, warned that Britain’s exit from the EU must not be delayed. He said: “All these anti-March 29 proposals are basically inviting the United Kingdom and the voters to accept defeat at the hands of the EU and those who want to stop Brexit – and I don’t think the British people want to be defeated.”
Former Brexit minister David Jones said: “The PM should not be panicked – she must continue to hold her nerve.”
Sir John Redwood, one of Britain’s most prominent Eurosceptics, warned that ruling out leaving without a deal would be a “fatal” move and said delaying Brexit would be “disastrous”.
He appealed to Mrs May, saying: “Please deliver our country from having to have another two or three years of this Parliament doing nothing but rowing over Brexit with the same people setting out the same views and going absolutely nowhere.
“The country would look like a laughing stock.”
Andrew Bridgen, the Tory MP for North West Leicestershire, had a similar warning, saying: “The EU aren’t going to blink until we get down to the 11th hour. We are nowhere near the 11th hour yet, so we must keep no-deal on the table and hold our nerve.”
He argued that “without a walk-away position there can be no negotiation”.
Last night the Church of England said it was planning to urge churchgoers to take part in five days of prayer in a bid to help Britain’s departure from the EU.
Congregations will be asked to pray for the country.