Shapps: ‘Theresa May can’t sack Boris Johnson because it would put her premiership in peril’
PRIME Minister Theresa May yesterday insisted the Cabinet was “united” behind her, despite renewed feuding over Brexit as the Conservatives’ annual conference opened in Manchester.
The gathering has already seen an incendiary intervention by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who laid down a raft of red lines for EU withdrawal, including an insistence that a transition phase must not last “a second more” than two years.
Mrs May sidestepped the question of whether Mr Johnson was “unsackable” in a high-profile TV interview, saying only that the Foreign Secretary was “absolutely behind” the plan for Brexit which she set out in a speech in the Italian city of Florence last month.
Mrs May told BBC 1’s Andrew Marr Show yesterday: “Boris is absolutely behind the Florence speech and the line that we have taken. What Boris is saying is the importance of the approach we have taken in the Florence speech. That has moved the discussion on and created a momentum in the negotiations.”
However, First Secretary of State Damian Green appeared to deliver a thinly-veiled rebuke to Mr Johnson over his outspokenness on Brexit.
In a pointed intervention, Mr Green called on ministers to make their policy pitches in private.
He told Radio 5 Live’s Pienaar’s Politics: “I am happy to make a general point that it is understandable that any group of politicians faced with a big issue will have a range of views.
“It is extremely sensible when you are in Government to express those views in private rather than public.
“It’s advice for everyone. It’s advice for all my colleagues at all times. That if you feel strongly about something then make your pitch in private.
“And then, when the Government has come to a collective decision, stick to it.”
As well as his Brexit demands, Mr Johnson sparked fury among some Tories by participating in a Channel 4 documentary in which a friend is reported to have said he believes Mrs May has “a year at most”.
Mrs May, who celebrated her 61st birthday yesterday, told the Sunday Telegraph: “I will fight the next election. I’m not a quitter, I’m in it for the long term.”
Communities Secretary Sajid Javid insisted he backed the PM to lead the Tories into the next election despite previously dodging the question in a newspaper interview.
But former party chairman Grant Shapps said there was no way Mrs May could take the party into electoral battle again.
He told ITV’s Peston on Sunday: “The reality is that every serious person, every serious MP, every commentator knows she can’t lead us into the next election.”
Mr Shapps said the PM cannot sack Mr Johnson because “putting him on the outside would put her entire premiership in instant peril”.
Mrs May said she plans to say sorry to activists for the party’s performance in the snap election she called earlier this year, when she addresses the Conservatives’ national convention on its opening day.
But asked whether her decision to call the poll three years early was a “mistake”, she told the BBC: “No. Is it ever a mistake to give people the opportunity to vote? I don’t think so.”
A poll of 2,000 voters by BMG for the Huffington Post found that 59% want Mrs May to step down immediately and 64% feel she should go before the next election.
But just 12% of Conservative voters said Mrs May should step down now, with 59% of Tories saying she should stay on until after Brexit or until the transition period was over.
Work and Pensions Secretary David Gauke told a fringe meeting he believed Mrs May can lead the Tories into the next election.