Clarke: I’ll be PM and end no deal Brexit
Tory veteran agrees to Lib Dem proposal to lead emergency cross-party government
TORY grandee Ken Clarke said last night that he was willing to become caretaker prime minister to avoid a nodeal Brexit, in a challenge to Boris Johnson’s leadership.
The former chancellor and longstanding MP gave his support to a proposal by Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat leader, to lead an emergency government “to sort Brexit out”.
Likening the political situation to 1931 and the two world wars, Mr Clarke said it was “not inconceivable” that a cross-party coalition would be needed to break the impasse.
“If they ask me to lead, yes I would lead it,” he said. “If it was the only way in which the plain majority in the House of Commons that is opposed to a no-deal exit could find a way forward, I wouldn’t object to it.”
Mr Clarke, the Father of the House – a title bestowed on the longest-serving male MP – said such an administration would be a “single-issue, short-term government” – and parties could return to their “old tribalism” afterwards.
At 79, he would become the oldest prime minister appointed for a first term in history. Lord Palmerston was 70 when he became premier in 1855.
Revealing he had only found out he had been touted for the role after returning from holiday in Norway, Mr Clarke, said: “There’s an awful lot to be gone through before then and I haven’t been taking part in any talks … I’ve been on the phone to one or two people in the last couple of days just to find out what the devil’s going on.”
Ms Swinson’s proposal came after she rejected Jeremy Corbyn’s suggestion that he should lead an emergency government to thwart a no-deal Brexit.
But last night, Lib Dem sources said there was some opposition to Mr Clarke’s suggestion that he would try to renegotiate the deal with the EU rather than call a second referendum.
“Personally I think a negotiated deal is the one that would carry the majority of the House of Commons and help reunite the public but I’m open to arguments about a referendum,” he said.
“There are Remainers, including myself, prepared to compromise, who would go for a soft Brexit, staying in the single market and customs union, and there are hardline Remainers who won’t have anything but a people’s vote which they are sure is going to reverse the decision and keep us in the EU.”
Messages exchanged among Lib Dem supporters, seen by The Daily Telegraph, suggested dissent in the ranks, with one calling Ms Swinson a “no-deal enabler”. She had already come under fire for first branding Mr Corbyn’s plan “nonsense” before agreeing to hold talks with him.
Yesterday the Labour leader hit back, saying it was “normal precedent” to allow the Leader of the Opposition to form an administration after a successful vote of no confidence in the Government. “It’s not up to Jo Swinson to decide who the next prime minister is going to be,” he said.
Mr Clarke responded: “I think it’s very unlikely that he (Jeremy Corbyn) can win an election but he can’t just say ‘if it’s any other government, it’s got to be me’. That’s just wrong, factually and constitutionally.”
Insisting that as an “elder statesman” he was “no threat to anybody’s political career,” Mr Clarke questioned whether Mr Johnson could get another deal with Brussels, because he “makes ridiculous and outrageous demands”. He added: “His hard line Right-wing nationalist supporters that he’s surrounded himself with plainly are determined to get no deal.”
He also said Mr Johnson would lose a confidence vote if he believed Parliament to be “an irrelevance”. He said: “All that is dangerous, anti democratic, unconstitutional nonsense. Nobody’s believed that since Oliver Cromwell. I don’t think Boris Johnson believes it either.”
HE WENT on holiday for two weeks in Norway and came back being hailed as a caretaker prime minister.
If the news was surprising for Ken Clarke, then it was even more galling for Jeremy Corbyn, who had hoped to end the week being touted as the only man who could rescue Britain from a no-deal Brexit.
Instead, with his attempted coup over before it had even begun, the Labour leader found himself playing second fiddle to a 79-year-old veteran of Thatcher, Major and Cameron’s governments.
Father of the House Clarke, who having first been elected as the Tory MP for Rushcliffe in 1970 has 49 years of parliamentary experience under his belt, insisted that as an elder statesman, he “posed no threat to anybody”.
Yet, one wonders if the Labour MP for Islington North saw it quite like that as Clarke took to the airwaves on Friday afternoon to denounce the Marxist’s hopes of ever winning a general election, let alone becoming Prime Minister.
Echoing the words of the Liberal Democrat leader, Jo Swinson – who was the first to name Clarke along with Mother of the House Harriet Harman as a potential leader of a unity government – the former chancellor, fresh from his Nordic break, pulled no punches in laying into the pottiness of Corbyn’s plan.
On Wednesday, she denounced the Labour leader’s scheme to lead a crossparty coalition to force Boris Johnson from office, delay Article 50 and campaign for a second referendum, as “nonsense”.
A clearly rattled Mr Corbyn hit back yesterday, saying: “It is not up to Jo Swinson to decide who the next prime minister is going to be.”
He called on her to respect the “normal precedent” to allow the leader of the Opposition to form an administration after a successful vote of no confidence in the Government.
As Tory rebels joined opposition leaders in distancing themselves from a Corbyn-led pact, Mr Clarke was all too willing to put the boot in during interviews with Radio 4’s programme and BBC News.
“I don’t want to annoy Jeremy, because he’s a key figure and he’s got to play a key role – but he’s wrong about the convention,” he said. “He becomes Prime Minister if he wins a general election, which I don’t think he ever will.”
He added: “He can’t just say, ‘If it’s any other government it’s got to be me.’ That’s just wrong, factually and constitutionally – and he’ll have to do what previous party leaders did and let somebody else lead it, because it’s the only way you get a multiparty group to come together.”
Pointing out that governments of national unity have “never been led by the leader of the opposition or the leader of the biggest party” in the past “because it’s too difficult to get all-party agreement”, he said that Mr Corbyn’s idea of negotiating a deal after a general election was “a non-starter”.
Mr Clarke also highlighted Mr Corbyn’s personal approval rating with his own MPS.
“Jeremy, personally – precisely because he’s a very controversial leader of the opposition – is quite unsuitable to lead a government of national unity.”
Mr Clarke claimed that even sympathetic Conservative MPS and Labour MPS would find it difficult to join a government with Mr Corbyn as prime minister.
Boris Johnson did not get off lightly either from the man who claimed to be “no threat to anybody’s career”.
Mr Clarke took a leaf out of the Prime Minister’s book by referencing the historical context of today’s constitutionally unprecedented times.
“We are in a similar situation to 1931 and, rather wildly, the two world wars when the same thing happened,” he said. “I think the present crisis is as bad as it was in 1931, or I don’t want to make too wild an analogy, even in 1940,” he added, doing precisely that.
Declaring that a no-deal Brexit would cause “short-term chaos and long-term damage to our economy and our jobs”, he claimed that Mr Johnson would get a deal “if he stopped putting down silly conditions”.
“I’ve heard him say of course he’d much prefer a deal, no deal is a millionto-one chance and all that kind of thing.
“He makes ridiculous and outrageous demands, which I think make it 99 per cent certain that he is not capable of negotiating a deal because his hard-line, Right-wing nationalist supporters that he’s surrounded himself with plainly are determined to get no deal.” Predicting that Mr Johnson would lose a no-confidence vote if he tried to circumvent parliament, Mr Clarke also launched a thinly veiled attack on the Prime Minister’s chief strategist, Dominic Cummings, who has said there is nothing MPS can do to stop no deal.
He said: “This idea that parliament’s an irrelevance, just a nuisance, and all the bright ideas of his aides – if you don’t give them a chance to debate it, you can just sail on past the Oct 31 and present them with a fait accompli – all that is dangerous, anti-democratic, unconstitutional nonsense. Nobody’s believed that since Oliver Cromwell. I don’t think Boris Johnson believes it either.”
Last night, the Prime Minister did not react to Mr Clarke’s extraordinary intervention. With the so-called “Gaukeward squad” of Tory former ministerial rebels due to meet early next week, the focus has now irrevocably shifted from Mr Corbyn’s plot to legislative action to stop Brexit.
Having declared himself “open to the idea” of a second referendum, Mr Clarke’s insistence that there is still a way to delay Article 50 is likely to be seized upon by the very people he is proposing to lead.
Perhaps it should be no surprise to anyone that a lifelong Europhile who chooses to holiday in Norway could now act as the kingmaker for the softest Brexit that anyone could possibly