Stopping Corbyn and delivering what we promised is the only way forward

This is exam season and all over the country children are sitting tests and being judged on their coursework. For politicians, too, life is a mix of continuous assessment and stressful, one-off challenges. The difference is, in politics we tend to mark each other’s homework.

Sometimes, it’s how we vote in the big divisions in the House of Commons. At others, it’s our track record, in office and opposition. Only at elections do the voters get to grade us. Tory MPS are now thinking about which of their colleagues’ results will take them not to an Oxbridge entrance interview, but to something which involves even more bluffing, showing off and obsessive scrutiny of where

they went to school. Namely, who’s going to replace Theresa May in Number 10 when she finally leaves?

The fate of Brexit and the future of the Tory party both hang in the balance, but for me the key question is: who is going to do best at stopping Jeremy Corbyn from getting into Downing Street?

The Labour leader is unfit to be prime minister and the agonies Theresa May has inflicted on us as a party since her botched election campaign should not obscure that fact.

Corbyn is dangerous and unworthy and whoever next leads us has to stop the early election which could put Corbyn and Mcdonnell in power.

Given the unalterable arithmetic of this Parliament, I can see no Tory contender who can plausibly promise that while supporting the disastrous “backstop” the DUP are so right to oppose. Bad as it is for both Brexit and, crucially, the Union.

Headmistress May set us tests. Quirkily, she called them “meaningful votes”, while then ignoring their meaning, unambiguous and negative as it always was. At the last one (MV3), some Tory Brexiteers voted with the Prime Minister. Had Theresa May and her supporters got her dreadful deal over the line, we would have had the Brexit In Name Only (BRINO) we all warned about, and there would have been no plausible or lawful escape from it. A new prime minister would have made no difference to that.

Just consider Theresa May’s reaction to being defeated on MV3. Did she and her supporters accept that they had pushed Parliament and the public as far as they prudently dare?

Not a bit of it. They recklessly plunged deeper in – to try and get an even worse deal from Jeremy Corbyn.

‘There are more people who will rebel against Brexit In Name Only than who will rebel against Brexit’

There’s nothing in it for him to give the Tory party a deal on Brexit, even under a new leader. What that means, however, is that the numbers in this Parliament do not change. And those numbers are this: Tory Brexiteers defeating the Government when it doesn’t deliver Brexit. This won’t alter with a change of leader. What we need is a change of policy, back to what we promised and to what the people want. They’ll tell us again today when they vote in the European elections.

Our next leader needs to be able to count. There are more people like me who will rebel against BRINO than there are who will rebel against Brexit. Those numbers won’t change either.

Nigel Farage has said he won’t work with an Mv3-supporting Tory leader.

He can’t be allowed to dictate our next leader, but his voters will determine whether we stay in office.

Let’s get it right this time.

Steve Baker MP is deputy chairman of the European Research Group (ERG).