PM MAY, who had previously described her leadership as ‘strong and stable’, was yesterday struggling to keep her head above water as the Tory rebellion to knife her premiership erupted into the open.
May protested that she has the ‘full support of her cabinet’ after a former party chairman, Grant Shapps, called for a leadership contest and said that he had the support of over 30 MPs, five ex-cabinet members plus the sympathy of a number of serving cabinet members.
Grant Shapps said: ‘I don’t think we can go on like this.’ Meanwhile Cabinet members were putting on a show of loyalty to May, after she was humiliated during her main conference speech by a comedian being allowed to approach her and present her with a P45.
He was able to dominate the situation and insisted that he was acting on behalf of Boris Johnson, who had to be told to stand up when a section of the audience stood up to applaud the PM. Her fit of coughing and then the collapse of the support advertising completed her humiliation and effectively ended her premiership.
Now all the king’s horses and and all the king’s men will not be able to put Theresa May back together again – even if they wanted to. Environment Secretary Michael Gove, a leading ‘Leaver’ was among those publicly defending her on Friday morning, as Shapps made his bid to make May stand down. Gove fantastically told the media that the prime minister was a ‘fantastic’ leader, had widespread support, and should stay ‘as long as she wants’!
A total of 48 MPs would need to write to the chairman of the 1922 committee of backbench Tories in order to trigger a vote of confidence in the leader. A contest would be triggered when Theresa May lost that vote, or quit. Shapps, the ex co-chair of the party between 2012 and 2015, said no letter had been sent and that his intention had been to have a more private assassination, using persuasion to get May to stand down, but the whips had blown the whistle on his plans.
They had taken the ‘extraordinary’ step of making it public by naming him as the ringleader of the plot. Shapps told the BBC: ‘I think it is time we actually tackle this issue of leadership and so do many colleagues. We wanted to present that to Theresa May privately. Now I’m afraid it’s being done a bit more publicly.’
Shapps said the prime minister was a ‘perfectly decent person’ but had ‘rolled the dice’ and lost over her decision to call a snap election, in which the party had surrendered its majority. The time has come. You can’t just carry on when things aren’t working. The solution is not to bury heads in the sand.’
He added that his list of supporters included both ‘Remainers and Brexiteers’. While the Tory party was tearing itsef apart, the Labour Party and the trade union leaders were deadly silent, with not a single call for May to resign and to take the whole of the Tory government with her. There is no doubt that this is the time for action to bring the Tories down and bring in a workers government that will fight for socialism.
