THE TORY Party was in increasing disarray yesterday in the wake of the general election, with former Tory Chancellor, George Osborne, calling PM May ‘a dead woman walking’, while Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell announced: ‘We’re preparing for government.’
A snap survey by Conservativehome of 1,500 Tory Party members reported that almost two thirds of them want May out now, with 60% saying she should quit now and trigger a leadership election and only 37% saying she should stay.
While May was carrying out a cabinet re-shuffle yesterday afternoon, it was widely reported yesterday that at least five Tory cabinet ministers were demanding that Foreign Secretary Johnson launch an immediate leadership challenge.
The Tories were yesterday desperately clinging onto the claim that they were on the brink of stitching up a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party of the north of Ireland. Overnight Downing Street had issued a statement claiming that the principles of a deal with the DUP had already been agreed, before issuing another statement contradicting that and saying that negotiations are continuing.
The DUP stated that they were as ‘surprised as anybody’ by Downing Street’s original announcement that a deal has been reached. Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Enda Kenny warned that any such Tory-DUP deal would put the peace process in Northern Ireland at risk, tweeting yesterday: ‘Spoke w PM May -indicated my concern that nothing should happen to put GoodFridayAgrmt at risk & absence of nationalist voice in Westminster.’
The Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998, promises ‘rigorous impartiality’ from the UK government over disputes in the north of Ireland. Sinn Fein, which does not take its seats at Westminster, said the DUP had ‘betrayed the interests of the people’ and warned that any new arrangement would ‘end in tears’.
DUP leader Arlene Foster is reportedly set to meet May at Downing Street tomorrow.
May loyalist, Tory MP Bernard Jenkin turned on Osborne and Lord Heseltine, telling them to ‘shut up’ and stop ‘rocking the boat’, or they ‘will see Jeremy Corbyn in No 10’.
