Tag: 1922 Committee

Theresa May has stepped up last-ditch efforts to try to win over Brexit-backing MPs after government legal advice warned the Irish backstop could leave the UK trapped in “protracted and repeated rounds of negotiations” for years to come. But Brexiters immediately rejected one idea mooted by Downing Street, of promising a “parliamentary lock” – giving MPs a vote before the backstop could be implemented. With just six days to go until the vote on her controversial deal, which May is expected to lose heavily, Downing Street confirmed the prime minister was keen to find ways to offer MPs extra reassurance about the backstop, in the hope they will support her. May brings it back to MPs Perhaps with minor tweaks after a dash to Brussels. Labour tries to force an election The opposition tables a vote of no confidence. A second referendum gathers support This is most likely if Labour makes a last-ditch decision to back it. However, a Downing Street spokesman dismissed the suggestion. The advice confirmed that, as Cox conceded in his Commons statement on Monday, the UK could remain “indefinitely” in the backstop. This is a political decision for the government.” Cox’s advice, which hardened the resolve of some Brexiters to vote against May’s deal, was published as the debate about the deal in the House of Commons entered the second of five scheduled days. But Sam Gyimah, who resigned as a junior education minister on Friday, joined Fallon and Greening in explaining why he could not support the government.

A row has broken out among campaigners for a second referendum about when to push the issue to a vote in parliament, with the Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston resisting pressure not to table her amendment demanding a “people’s vote”. With the Labour leadership withholding its support, some campaigners fear forcing the issue to a vote on 11 December would undermine their cause. They believe once it has been shown that there is no majority for a second referendum – and achieving one is likely to be impossible without Labour backing – it will be difficult to return to the question again if May’s deal is rejected. Wollaston said she remained a “passionate supporter” of a people’s vote, but would wait until after the weekend before deciding whether she would table her “doctors’ amendment”. If MPs reject the deal, there are seven possible paths the country could go down next. Labour tries to force an election The opposition tables a vote of no confidence. Some MPs fear the government could then say parliament had definitively rejected a second referendum. The government’s announcement that it will accept amendments to the motion approving May’s Brexit deal – with up to six to be voted on, before the deal itself – has sparked a scramble to decide which questions to press. Meanwhile the Conservative former minister Jo Johnson warned on Thursday that May’s Brexit deal could lead to electoral Armageddon for his party. Johnson described the package their party leader had agreed with the EU as a “botched deal” that would put British firms at a competitive disadvantage and fail the services sector, which he said had been “scandalously” neglected during negotiations on Brexit.

Five Eurosceptic cabinet ministers are pressing Theresa May to make last-minute changes to her controversial Brexit deal. Having opted to remain in the government, Michael Gove will work with other Brexit-backing cabinet ministers to urge the prime minister to seek to go back to Brussels and renegotiate, in particular over the Irish backstop, Whitehall sources say. No-confidence proceedings Forty-eight Conservative MPs would need to back a no-confidence vote in Theresa May to trigger a leadership contest, according to party rules. There are two ways a contest can be triggered, most obviously if the leader of the party resigns. If they do not, 15% of Conservative MPs must write to the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories. Unlike Labour party rules, under which candidates go to a ballot of members as long as they have the support of 15% of the party’s MPs, Conservative candidates are whittled down to a final two before party members have their say. Under Conservative party rules, 48 Conservative MPs must write letters to trigger a confidence vote. The group of five ministers are reportedly hoping that by changing the most controversial details of the withdrawal agreement, May could avoid both a vote of no confidence and a defeat in parliament. Under the current arrangement, the UK would not be able to leave the Irish backstop without the EU’s consent. “This idea that now after two years of negotiation, somehow four or five cabinet ministers can negotiate a different outcome and agree it themselves, and then expect the EU to just sign up to that, I just think it’s not living in the real world,” Coveney told a podcast recorded by the Irish Times at his Fine Gael party’s annual conference.