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Courtesy of the Sunday Times.
A vicious cabinet war erupted last night over a plot by senior ministers to delay Brexit, as Theresa May looked certain to shelve plans for a Commons vote on her deal this week. Five cabinet colleagues rounded on Amber Rudd, calling for her to be sacked after she publicly threatened to defy the prime minister by voting to delay article 50. The work and pensions secretary was singled out by cabinet colleagues as the ringleader of a cross-party campaign to stop Brexit. She was accused of seeking to further her own leadership ambitions.
The party was plunged into fresh bloodletting after May was warned she could be forced to quit within weeks should her Brexit deal go through. Rudd, with David Gauke, the justice secretary, and Greg Clark, the business secretary, sparked a furious backlash after they vowed to delay Brexit unless the prime minister secures a breakthrough on her deal. In comments that are likely to escalate the row, Phil Wilson, a Labour MP, told The Sunday Times that he has held secret talks with cabinet ministers to gain their backing for an amendment that would open the door to a second referendum. Wilson said: “It’s a massive step and what’s important is the reach we’re also having among Tory MPs.” The move comes at the end of an extraordinary week that saw three Tory remainer MPs quit the party to join eight former Labour MPs in a breakaway Independent Group.
May was facing an uphill battle to unite her warring party as cabinet ministers called for her to stand down after the local elections. They warned that if she refused, she would be ousted by the end of the year anyway. Speaking at the National Conservative Convention outside Oxford, the prime minister said the party’s focus on delivering Brexit “must be absolute”. She added: “We must not, and I will not, frustrate what was the largest democratic exercise in this country’s history. In the very final stages of this process, the worst thing we could do is lose our focus.”
Today, May will leave for Sharm el Sheikh, where she is due to discuss Brexit on the margins of an EU summit with Arab leaders and meet Donald Tusk, president of the European Council. However, with Downing Street playing down the prospects of the prime minister striking a “deal in the desert”, the chances of her bringing forward a meaningful vote on Brexit this week look slim. Instead, May is expected to use a statement to parliament on Tuesday to ask MPs for more time to rework her divorce agreement with the EU — the third time she has postponed a decisive vote on her deal since she was defeated by a record 230 votes in January. Unless parliament votes through a Brexit deal before Wednesday, MPs are likely to be asked to vote this week on a motion that would effectively take no deal off the table and force the prime minister to seek to delay Britain’s departure from the EU.