Out of allies, out of time
Cabinet ministers say May will have to quit if she loses vote by heavy margin as her last-ditch bid for support fails to win over Brexiteers
THERESA MAY will be expected to stand down if she loses tonight’s vote on her Brexit deal as heavily as predicted, Cabinet sources have said.
More than 100 Conservative MPS have insisted they will oppose the deal, putting the Prime Minister on course to break a series of unwelcome parliamentary records.
She made a last-ditch attempt to win over the rebels yesterday, producing a letter from Brussels promising that the Northern Ireland backstop would be temporary and was “not a threat or a trap”.
The deal suffered its first official parliamentary defeat in the Lords last night as peers voted by 321 votes to 152 – a majority of 169 – to reject it.
Tonight Mrs May will make one final bid to change MPS’ minds when she closes the debate on the Brexit deal, having already warned the Commons that “when the history books are written”, MPS would be judged on whether they had “let the British people down”.
If Mrs May loses the vote – expected between 7.30 and 9.30pm – she is expected to make an immediate statement on her next move.
Last night Labour said Jeremy Corbyn would call a no-confidence vote in the Government “within minutes” of a defeat for Mrs May, with such a vote likely to go ahead tomorrow. If the Government lost a confidence vote, a general election could follow.
The Prime Minister, however, could be gone even before a no-confidence vote, in the event that she suffers a record-breaking defeat this evening.
Downing Street declined to deny that Mrs May would resign if she was defeated by a margin well into triple figures. Cabinet sources said a defeat by a majority of more than 100 would put Mrs May’s future in peril.
Gareth Johnson, a junior whip, resigned from the Government yesterday in order to vote against the EU Withdrawal Agreement. Later, Greg Hands said he would vote against the deal, tak- ing the total number of declared Tory rebels to 113. Excluding the Speaker, that would leave a maximum of just 203 Tory MPS backing the deal, plus one Liberal Democrat and one Labour defector.
The DUP has already said its 10 MPS will vote against the Government. If they are joined by all Labour, Lib Dem, Scottish Nationalist, Green, Plaid Cymru and independent MPS, that would make 436 votes against the Government, a defeat of 230. Sinn Fein’s seven MPS do not vote. It means Mrs May is on course to outstrip the current record of a 166-vote defeat, suffered by Ramsay Macdonald in 1924.
The Daily Telegraph understands that at least two parliamentary private secretaries and a Tory party vice-chairman are considering resigning before the vote so they can oppose the deal.
One Cabinet source said: “If she loses by more than 100 votes, and it looks like there is no way of persuading more than a few Tory rebels to change their minds, that would be pretty disastrous for the PM and hard for her to carry on. But if she lost by 100 or so votes and there were 80 or 90 rebels who might change their mind if she could get something meaningful from Brussels, then it’s possible she could stay on.”
Potential leadership candidates Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and David Davis are increasing their media engagements this week in case Mrs May should fall. Other ministers believe Mrs May will try to fight on, whatever the result, as MPS know she is likely to go back to Brussels if she loses, to seek further concessions on the deal, meaning a second vote would be her true D-day.
Mrs May will chair a Cabinet meeting today at which she will be told by Brexiteers that she will lose their support if she moves “an inch closer to Brussels” in an attempt to reach a deal.
The Prime Minister claimed a longawaited letter from Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, and Jean-claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, provided “valuable new clarifications and assurances” that the EU would do everything it could to avoid the need for a backstop and that it would only be temporary if it ever kicked in. The DUP and Brexiteers dismissed the letter as “meaningless”.
Mrs May spent hours defending her deal with appearances in Leave-supporting Stoke-on-trent, in Parliament and in a private meeting of the Conservative Party.
In another marathon appearance in the Commons, Mrs May said: “When the history books are written, people will look at the decision of this House tomorrow and ask: did we deliver on the country’s vote to leave the European Union? Did we safeguard our economy, our security and our Union? Or did we let the British people down?”
‘She was relaxed and cracked a couple of jokes. It was one of her best performances’
‘The room was listening, was absorbing and was very reflective of what the realpolitik is’
WITH just over 24 hours to go before the biggest vote of her political life, the Prime Minister yesterday found herself resorting to a mixture of pleading, threats and stark warnings.
Theresa May began her day by travelling 170 miles to a pottery factory in Stoke-on-trent – one of the most probrexit areas of the country.
There, her message to assembled workers was blunt as she urged Tory MPS to back her deal or thwart Brexit.
At the same time, she set out the legal assurances she had been given by Brussels that she hoped would prove to be a game-changer. Tory Eurosceptics, however, were unmoved, dismissing them as little more than a “fig leaf ”.
She then returned to London to address the Commons and warn MPS that “history” would judge them if they failed to back her deal, even invoking the spectre of another Scottish independence referendum.
In the evening, Mrs May addressed the 1922 Committee of Tory MPS, where sources said she was surprisingly relaxed. Despite all her efforts, “she knows the game is up”, one of those present said.
The Government released the exchange of letters between London and Brussels that were supposed to provide reassurance to MPS at 11am. Yet the correspondence only served to further enrage the DUP – upon whose votes No10 is relying to push their plan through at 7pm tonight.
Rebuffing Mrs May’s demand for a 12-month time limit to the backstop, it sought to win round MPS by emphasising that a technological solution for avoiding a hard border was possible.
Jean-claude Juncker and Donald Tusk, the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council, also attempted to reassure Leavers by emphasising that a customs union triggered by the backstop would be considered a “suboptimal” trading relationship by the EU.
Nigel Dodds summed up the reaction among the Unionists when he said that “rather than reassure us, the Tusk and Juncker letter bolsters our concerns” over the Brexit deal. Pointing out the absence of the “legally binding assurances” the Prime Minister promised in December, he added: “Nothing has changed.”
Tories including Will Quince, Damian Collins and Rob Wilson also posted their dissatisfaction on Twitter.
There was further consternation on the Conservative backbenches when ministers were reported to be urging MPS to back an amendment tabled by Andrew Murrison, setting an expiry deadline for the Irish backstop of Dec 31 2021. While supporting it would show Brussels what was required to get the deal through Parliament and lessen the humiliation of Mrs May’s defeat, many were left wondering why the Government would support an amendment that prevented it from ratifying its own deal.
Manfred Weber, the European People’s Party leader and one of the frontrunners to succeed Mr Juncker, only further aggravated Tories with his somewhat smug invitation to “our British colleagues to behave responsibly and vote for this agreement”.
Naturally, Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, liked what he read, writing on Twitter that it was a “very clear and strong letter … offering clarity, support and a positive commitment to work with the UK in the interests of both EU and UK through Brexit”.
Behind the scenes, Brussels was said to be preparing to offer Mrs May a delay to Brexit until at least July in the event her deal was defeated.
Another letter, this time from Geoffrey Cox, the Attorney General, in response to the UK/EU correspondence, did little to allay concerns, confirming that the letters “do not alter the fundamental meanings” of the Withdrawal Agreement.
Mrs May had not even got to her feet to deliver her speech to the Stoke workers when the contents of her address was already being debunked by Plaid Cymru and Labour.
Liz Saville Roberts, the Welsh independence party’s Westminster leader, took particular offence at a pre-briefed line suggesting that Mrs May would call for the EU referendum to be honoured just as the 1997 referendum for a Welsh Assembly was.
It was not long before opposition politicians started circulating the 2005 Conservative Party manifesto, offering the Welsh a second referendum.
In the end, there was scant reference to the Welsh Assembly as Mrs May once again took to the podium to warn that it was her deal or no Brexit.
And while she said she “didn’t believe” there would be an extension of Article 50 or a second referendum, she conspicuously stopped short of ruling either out altogether, no doubt to the delight of Remain plotters and the dismay of disgruntled Brexiteers.
Within two hours of the speech, Mrs May suffered her 13th ministerial resignation in whip Gareth Johnson.
He declared that the backstop would “fetter” the UK’S ability to strike trade deals and the Withdrawal Agreement would instead leave Britain “perpetually constrained by the EU”.
George Osborne, Mrs May’s arch rival, was later delighted to twist the knife with a front-page article in the Evening Standard, which the former chancellor edits, predicting a crushing defeat for the Government.
By the time she was giving her afternoon statement to the House, at least 64 Tory MPS had said they would vote against the deal, leaving Mrs May facing defeat in the Commons by more than 100. With 639 MPS able to take part in the vote, the number voting against the deal is currently projected to be about 383.
Mrs May told MPS that “history” would judge them if they failed to vote through her deal as she urged them to “take a second look”. She admitted that the assurances from the EU did “not go as far as some would like”.
Mark Francois, a vice-chairman of the European Research Group of Tory Eurosceptics, described the assurances as a “fig leaf and a small fig leaf at that”.
Desmond Swayne, another Eurosceptic Tory MP, called for the Prime Minister to suspend Parliament “until April” in order to “guarantee Brexit”.
Several MPS criticised John Bercow, the Speaker, for meeting Dominic Grieve ahead of a vote on his amendment last week that handed more control over Brexit to Parliament. “The notion some advantage is given as part of a secret plot is staggeringly absurd,” said Mr Bercow.
Despite the bitter Tory divisions, a Yougov poll put the party six points ahead of Labour on 41, a reaction perhaps to shadow chancellor John Mcdonnell’s refusal to guarantee the Corbynistas’ coveted second referendum during an interview with the BBC.
Instead Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, once again called for a general election in his response to Mrs May’s Commons statement.
As former chairman of the Conservative Party Lord Patten was telling the House of Lords Mrs May’s deal was a “shambles”, Mel Stride, the financial secretary to the Paymaster General let slip the Treasury’s thoughts on nodeal, after being photographed holding a piece of paper with “No food. No Channel Tunnel” scrawled across it.
In the evening, Mrs May addressed the 1922 Committee, where one MP said she was “more relaxed than I have seen in years”, adding: “She gave by her standards a light-hearted speech which was well received, but she knows the game is up.”
Meanwhile, Nadhim Zahawi, an education minister, said: “She was relaxed and cracked a couple of jokes. It was one of her best performances. The room was listening, was absorbing and was very reflective of what the realpolitik is.”