Confidence ballot win for May
PRIME MINISTER SUCCESSFUL IN CONFIDENCE BALLOT
Theresa May has seen off an attempt by rebel backbenchers to oust her as Conservative leader and Prime Minister.
But she sowed the seeds for her eventual departure by telling Tory MPs that she would not lead the party into the next general election.
The Prime Minister won a confidence vote of the 317 Conservative MPs by a margin of 200 to 117 in a secret ballot at Westminster.
Theresa May has seen off an attempt by rebel backbenchers to oust her as Conservative leader and Prime Minister.
But she sowed the seeds for her eventual departure by telling Tory MPs that she would not lead the party into the next general election, expected in 2022
The Prime Minister won a confidence vote of the 317 Conservative MPs by a margin of 200 to 117 in a secret ballot at Westminster.
The vote was triggered by party grandee Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, early yesterday after he received letters of no confidence in the PM from at least 15% of the parliamentary party.
A defiant Mrs May vowed to fight “with everything I’ve got” to defend her position.
In a statement outside 10 Downing Street, Mrs May said securing a Brexit deal which will deliver on the result of the 2016 referendum was “now within our grasp” adding she was “making progress” in securing reassurances from EU leaders on concerns about the proposed backstop for the Irish border.
Addressing assembled MPs at a meeting of the 1922 Committee moments before the vote, Mrs May said she accepted she could not fight the next election as their leader.
And, according to MPs present at the meeting, she also promised to find a “legally binding solution” to ensuring that the UK does not get permanently trapped in a backstop arrangement to keep the Irish border open after Brexit.
The scale of this task was highlighted by Irish premier Leo Varadkar and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, who insisted as MPs voted that the UK’s Withdrawal Agreement “cannot be reopened or contradicted”.
And DUP leader Arlene Foster insisted that “tinkering around the edges” of the agreement would not be enough to win her party’s support for the deal.
Anger over the backstop was the main obstacle to Mrs May getting her Brexit deal through the House of Commons earlier this week.
Her decision to defer the vote sparked a new wave of letters of no confidence which pushed the total beyond the 48 needed.
Mrs May’s victory in the confidence vote means that another challenge cannot be mounted against her position as Tory leader for a year.
But she still faces the danger of a no-confidence motion in the House of Commons, which could bring her Government down if backed by more than half of all MPs.
Mrs May vowed to fight “with everything I’ve got” to defend position