May’s call to Cabinet as Brexit rebels plot
THERESA MAY last night faced a Cabinet revolt after attempting to shore up support for her Brexit plans during an extraordinary hour-and-a-half-long conference call with her ministers.
Esther Mcvey, the Work and Pensions Secretary, is said to have told the Prime Minister that she was “devastated” by plans to extend the Brexit transition period in a bid to strike a deal with the European Union.
Meanwhile, Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, warned the Prime Minister that there must be a time limit on her customs backstop amid concerns that it could leave Britain indefinitely tied to Brussels.
He is said to have directly asked the Prime Minister if she had “explicitly threatened the EU with no deal” as concerns mount that Mrs May is making too many concessions to secure a breakthrough.
It comes as the Prime Minister faces one of the most pivotal weeks of her premiership amid suggestions that Tory MPS are poised to trigger a confidence vote.
Today she will attempt to reassure MPS that Brexit negotiations are “95 per cent” settled when she updates the Commons on last week’s Brussels summit. Tomorrow she will hold a Cabinet meeting, while on Wednesday she faces the prospect of a Eurosceptic revolt in the Commons and a “showdown” with Tory MPS, before holding a meeting of her Brexit inner cabinet on Thursday.
More than a dozen ministers were involved in yesterday’s conference call, some of whom were given less than 15 minutes’ notice before it took place.
A smaller group of ministers held a similar conference call with the Prime Minister on Saturday, but several were left unconvinced or confused by her explanation of the plans.
“It raised more questions than answers,” one source said.
Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General who was hailed as the hero of the Conservative Party conference after introducing Mrs May, is understood to have raised significant concerns during that call about both the backstop and extending the transition.
The mounting opposition from Eurosceptic Cabinet ministers is likely to increase concerns that further resignations over the Prime Minister’s Brexit plan are imminent.
Rebels believe they are just two letters away from the 48 needed to trigger the vote, which could result in a leadership contest.
The Prime Minister will today reiterate her commitment to avoiding a hard border with Ireland after Brexit and again reject the European Union’s demands for a Northern Irish backstop.
She will tell the Commons: “The shape of the deal across the vast majority of the Withdrawal Agreement is
now clear. The commitment to avoiding a hard border is one that this House emphatically endorsed and enshrined in law in the Withdrawal Act earlier this year.
“As I set out last week, the original backstop proposal from the EU was one we could not accept, as it would mean creating a customs border down the Irish Sea and breaking up the integrity of the UK.
“I do not believe that any UK Prime Minister could ever accept this. And I certainly will not.”
She will also say that the Government has agreed “underlying memoranda” after discussions with Spain to resolve the issue of Gibraltar after Brexit, “heralding a new era in our relations”.
Downing Street is declining to say whether she will attend a “showdown” meeting of the 1922 committee of Conservative MPS on Wednesday after rebels suggested she should “bring her own noose”.
That followed a series of furious briefings against the Prime Minister over the weekend, with one Tory MP saying that the moment was coming when “the knife gets heated, stuck in her front and twisted”. The language was widely condemned by MPS on all sides of the Brexit divide.
Theresa Villiers, an outspoken critic of the Prime Minister’s Chequers plan, said it was “disturbing”.
The Prime Minister is also facing the threat of a Commons rebellion on Wednesday as Eurosceptic MPS attempt to force her hand over Northern Ireland.
Steve Baker, a former Brexit minister, has tabled a series of amendments to the Northern Ireland Bill that would kill the EU’S plans for a customs backstop in the event that a deal cannot be reached by the time the transition period ends.
The EU’S plans would see Northern Ireland in a customs union with the EU.
‘The moment is coming when the knife gets heated, stuck in her front and twisted’
Mr Baker’s amendments, which have the support of at least 40 Eurosceptic Tory MPS and DUP MPS, would effectively make the EU’S backstop illegal. It would also damage the Prime Minister’s Chequers Brexit plan by blocking a separate regulatory regime in Ireland.
Mrs May is said to be considering regulatory checks in the Irish Sea in a bid to secure a breakthrough in Brexit negotiations.
Tory MPS believe that the Prime Minister could face a confidence vote in the next fortnight after a backlash over plans to extend the transition period after Brexit.
Meanwhile, Dominic Raab, the Brexit Secretary, said that negotiations must be tied up by the end of next month to allow new laws to be put in place in time for exit day.
The Brexit Secretary urged restive Tory MPS circling around Theresa May to “play for the team” and called on them to wait for the deal to be struck before taking action.
Mr Raab suggested the extension could run for three months but said the move would have to “solve” the Irish backstop issue.
There must also be a route out of it so it did not run indefinitely, he said. “It could be time-limited, there could be another mechanism,” he told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show.