May ‘must go’ if she’s unable to renegotiate her EU deal
Pressure grows on PM to abandon customs backstop as EU hints it might stop the clock on negotiations
THERESA MAY will be replaced if she fails to go back to Brussels and renegotiate her deal, Tory MPS have warned as EU leaders said they were prepared to discuss extending Article 50 at a summit later this month.
Zac Goldsmith said he hoped that the Government’s deal was defeated in Parliament next week as a string of Tory MPS urged the Prime Minister to abandon the customs backstop.
Mr Goldsmith, a Eurosceptic Tory MP, said: “I believe the Government is going to lose this vote next week, I hope – I’m afraid to say – the Government loses the vote next week.
“And then either this Prime Minister or, if she will not do it, another prime minister must take it back to the EU and change it.”
His comments came amid suggestions in Brussels that discussions about extending Article 50 – a move that would effectively stop the clock on negotiations – could take place if the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal was voted down next week.
Sir Michael Fallon, the former defence secretary, said Mrs May’s deal was “a risk too far” and would not have his support without improvement.
The Sevenoaks MP added: “If we are to surrender our vote, our voice and our veto then we need to have a deal that’s worth all the risks of not knowing how it’s going to work out, and we do not have that at the moment.
“This so-called deal is a gamble – we put all our cards and all our money on the table and then wait for another two years for the EU to set the rules of the game and that is a risk too far.”
Grant Shapps, another ex-minister, warned that the Irish border backstop proposal could “remove power” from the Commons and UK, adding: “For the first time as a Member of Parliament I find myself at odds with my own Government. With no sign of a solution, certainly not in the Attorney General’s legal advice, I am afraid I’m left contemplating my vote on the Withdrawal Agreement next Tuesday. I’m currently minded to vote against.”
Nigel Evans, a Brexiteer Tory, said rumours of an eleventh-hour change to get Mrs May’s deal through Parliament would not win him round.
The MP for Ribble Valley said: “I’ve heard a rumour the Prime Minister is thinking about a change that perhaps Parliament should be able to vote to put us into the backstop.
“I don’t want that power – getting into the backstop is not the problem, it’s getting out of the backstop that’s the problem. That’s why we need to be making the decision in this Parliament to be able to have that decision to say ‘thank you, we’re leaving’.”
Tory MP Anne Marie Morris (Newton
‘If we are to surrender our vote, our voice and our veto then we need to have a deal that’s worth all the risks’
Abbot) later called on the Government to pursue a World Trade Organisation deal.
She said: “I do not agree that suddenly there is going to be chaos, yes I do not dispute there will be a bumpy ride, but we are prepared.”
Lord Garnier, a former solicitor general, said: “I feel like someone sitting at the bedside of a terminally ill patient.
“I can watch and I can hope and I can regret that what is about to happen will happen, but there’s absolutely nothing I can do.”
He urged the Prime Minister to “start looking around the corner to see what can be achieved rather than doggedly pressing on trying to achieve what cannot succeed”.
Lord Howard, the former Conservative leader, compared the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal to a surrender treaty of a defeated nation.