LAST STAND OF THE SPARTANS
Hardline Brexiteers threaten to ‘bring down’ PM
A LEADING pro-Brexit Tory who gave Theresa May her vote last week today warns the Prime Minister her Government will collapse if she caves into Remainer demands for the UK to stay in the EU’s customs union.
Berwick-upon-Tweed MP Anne Marie Trevelyan dropped her longstanding opposition to Mrs May’s ‘flawed’ Brexit deal on Friday as it was the ‘only remaining route out of the EU’.
The senior member of the hardline European Research Group – nicknamed ‘The Spartans’ for their willingness to lay down their political lives for a pure Brexit – warns Mrs May’s deal must go through this week or Brexit will be lost forever. She vows today to bring down the Government if Mrs May compromises further and caves into demands from MPs for a softer Brexit.
Ms Trevelyan says bluntly such a move ‘would spell the end of the line for this Conservative Government’ as it would not be tolerated by Tory MPs.
In an explosive intervention in today’s Mail on Sunday, the respected backbencher warns Brexit faces its
‘We’ve accommodated the EU’s every whim’
‘gravest threat’ yet, as staying bound to Brussels tariff rules without a seat at the table is ‘the most damaging option available’.
As MPs prepare to force Mrs May into a softer Brexit, Ms Trevelyan has branded any further softening of the divorce terms a ‘surrender’ that would open the door to a Jeremy Corbyn regime.
Taking aim at Downing Street for breaking its promises, she writes: ‘The Conservative manifesto promised, and the Prime Minister has emphasised repeatedly, that we would leave the customs union and Single Market. Conservatives who vote to remain in the customs union tomorrow will be tearing up their manifesto commitments and doing irreparable damage to our party.’
And she has blamed a ‘bizarre lack of direction from the leader of our party and country, for fear of resignations’ as the key reason the Government has ended up on the brink of collapse.
‘The Prime Minister has always viewed Brexit as a damage-limitation exercise.
‘She never had any enthusiasm for the decision made by the British people in 2016, and as a result we’ve been accommodating the EU’s every whim rather than staunchly fighting for British interests.
‘It seems the PM has decided to throw away our right to leave the EU without a deal – despite having said dozens of times that ‘‘no deal is better than a bad deal’’.’
In a warning to future leadership contenders, she adds: ‘Governance and vision for our great country after a real Brexit has been delivered must be restored.’
Despite Ms Trevelyan backing Mrs May’s deal on Friday, Downing Street faces an uphill struggle to convince fellow ERG hardliners Steve Baker and Mark Francois into a similar climbdown.