No 10’s TOXIC TEXTS... OVER PM’ TROUSERS
Revealed: Vitriolic messages from May’s fixer banning top MP from Downing St – for sniping at costly clothes
EXPLOSIVE text messages have revealed how Theresa May banned a ‘soft Brexit’ former Cabinet Minister from Downing Street for criticising her £995 leather trousers.
Ex-Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has been told not to attend a scheduled Brexit meeting with the Prime Minister on Wednesday after an extraordinary text spat with Fiona Hill, Mrs May’s joint chief of staff. Hill ripped up Morgan’s No10
invitation after the MP publicly criticised the PM’s trousers
The ‘Trousergate’ clash came after Hill met Morgan and Tory pro-European cheerleader Alistair Burt at No10 and invited them to put their case to the PM this week. But after subsequently reading Morgan’s jibe about May’s trousers, a furious Hill texted Burt: ‘Don’t bring that woman to Downing Street again.’
Morgan texted Hill: ‘If you don’t like something I have said or done, please tell me directly. No man brings me to any meeting. Your team invites me. If you don’t want my views in future meetings you need to tell them.’
Hill texted back to Morgan: ‘Well, he just did. So there!’ – believed to be a reference to Burt having taken her to the previous meeting.
Three days later, No 10 told Morgan formally her name had been axed from the list of MPs invited to see May on Wednesday.
Details of the text message exchange are one of several new Tory leaks that have come despite Mrs May ordering a strict clampdown on such disclosures – as we reported last week.
The ‘Trousergate’ row started when Loughborough MP Ms Morgan said: ‘My barometer is always, “How am I going to explain this in Loughborough market?”,’ adding that Mrs May’s trousers had ‘been noticed and discussed’ in party circles. She added: ‘I’ve never spent that much on anything – apart from my wedding dress.’
Morgan’s ban means that the new group of ‘soft Brexit’ Tories – branded the ‘Pragmexits’ because they want a ‘pragmatic exit’ and oppose hardline calls to quit the single market – will see May on Wednesday without their leader and co-founder.
Instead, the delegation will be led by Burt. It will include ‘soft Brexit’ Tory MPs including Anna Soubry, Sir Nicholas Soames and Nick Herbert. The dispute underlines the increasing tensions over Brexit that threaten to tear the Conservative Party in two. And it highlights the powerful role that Hill holds in May’s inner circle.
Morgan’s dismissive comment about May’s leather trousers struck a raw nerve with Hill, who is both fiercely loyal to the Prime Minister and credited with ‘re-inventing’ her previously frumpy image with kitten heels and designer label clothes, such as the leather trousers.
One Tory MP said: ‘For Downing Street to ban Nicky from the meeting just because she made a mild remark about the PM’s trousers is appalling, absurd and will backfire.
‘Some people in No 10 are acting like a medieval monarch’s courtiers, not responsible civil servants in a modern democracy.
‘How dare they treat a highly respected ex-Cabinet Minister in such a high-handed way.’
Before she was banned, Morgan and Burt had attended two meetings with Hill at No 10 – at Hill’s request – after they informed Downing Street they were setting up their soft Brexit ‘Pragmexit’ group. They told her they wanted to help May fend off growing pressure from hardline Brexiteers to leave the single market and customs union, and cut all links with the EU.
‘They told her they knew she would have to compromise in negotiations with the EU in the national interest and would protect her from inevitable cries of betrayal from the antiEU fanatics when she did,’ said a well placed source. ‘Hill said the PM would appreciate such advice and agreed to set up the meeting.’
But Hill’s tone changed dramatically after Morgan’s leather trouser comments. Critics say the Prime Minister’s expensive wardrobe is at odds with her pledge on the steps of No 10 when she succeeded David Cameron to do more for hard-up families who were ‘just
about managing’ – the so-called JAMs. A hint that May was irked by Morgan’s comments about her trousers came when the Prime Minister was asked about them during her trip to the Middle East last week.
She replied defensively: ‘I believe it is important for politicians to get out and about and that’s what I continue to do. It is important we have a country that works for everyone.’
Friends of Morgan say that she was ‘shocked and puzzled’ by Hill’s texts, and on Wednesday May’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, Tory MP George Hollingbery, who is her Commons ‘eyes and ears’, confirmed that Morgan could not attend this week’s meeting.
Twenty four hours earlier, at a champagne party hosted by Soames, Ms Morgan delivered a powerful rally cry for ‘soft Brexit’ Tories to make their voices heard and help Mrs May as the Government prepares to sign Article 50 triggering negotiations on Britain’s exit from the EU. The party, in Soames’s Commons office, marked an alliance of two groups of ‘soft Brexit’ Tories, both invited to see May at No 10 on Wednesday; experienced MPs led by Morgan and Burt and 2015 Commons newcomers led by Bath MP Ben Howlett. At that point, Morgan had not been notified of the No 10 ban.
Burt and Soames echoed Morgan at the party, saying that it was vital for ‘moderate, mainstream’ Tories to fight for a ‘sane and sensible’ Brexit deal.
One MP at the meeting said: ‘It was all a bit hush-hush because there is such fear of being targeted by Brexit nutcases.’ The Mail on Sunday has been told that MPs win Morgan’s ‘Pragmexit’ group include Burt, Soubry, Howlett, Ken Clarke, Nick Herbert, Claire Perry, Dominic Grieve, Sir Simon Burns, Sarah Wollaston, Mark Menzies, Stephen Hammond, Bob Neill, Neil Carmichael, Keith Simpson and Tom Tugendhat – and most were at Soames’s bash. Ten of them have been invited to No10.
To avoid allegations that she was plotting against the Government, Morgan informed Chief Whip Gavin Williamson, who sent deputy whip Anne Milton to attend on his behalf. ‘We have only ever wanted to act as loyal Tories and help the PM avoid being forced down an extremist route on Brexit,’ said one MP.
‘The whips and No 10 told us they need us to shield her against the excesses of her own ministers like [International Trade Secretary] Liam Fox, but the treatment of Nicky has poisoned the well.’
Downing Street declined to comment last night.