May survives challenge

Dec. 12 The Telegraph

Theresa May will travel to Brussels to seek further assurances about the status of the Irish backstop provision in the EU Withdrawal Agreement, in an attempt to salvage the deal she has yet to put to Parliament, fearing its defeat.

In other words, despite yesterday’s dramas at Westminster, where the Prime Minister survived a challenge to her leadership of the Conservative Party, nothing appears to have changed, save in one crucial respect.

Her authority has been further damaged by the fact that 117 of her MPs have no confidence in her stewardship of the party or the Government. That represents well over one-third of the party and a sizeable chunk of the backbenchers, assuming that the so-called payroll vote of ministers and aides supported her.

When Margaret Thatcher defeated Michael Heseltine in the first round of their leadership contest in 1990, albeit not by enough to avoid a second ballot, she was told by the Cabinet that her time was up and she resigned. At the time, she had a Commons majority of 100 and had never lost an election.

By contrast, Mrs. May has no Commons majority and has never won an election outright. Yet she is sustained in position by the party’s terror of what might happen if she leaves office in the current circumstances. Yes, she has won a confidence vote; but she has been weakened.

She has also confirmed what many had already assumed: that she will not fight the next general election. She meant 2022 — but it might be much earlier than she anticipates and this will cause more unsettling ambiguity. This gives the Cabinet greater power, which could yet be her undoing.

Liam Fox, the Trade Secretary, gave an early sign of ministerial muscle-flexing by saying the Cabinet might not let her put the Withdrawal Agreement to Parliament without further cast-iron guarantees to ensure that it is passed.

For now, the Prime Minister has been given some breathing space. The long-anticipated coup mounted by the Brexiteers backfired when the Prime Minister and Sir Graham Brady, the 1922 Committee chairman, agreed to expedite the contest once he had received the required 48 letters needed to trigger one.

Brexiteers had worked on the assumption that the vote would be staged next week, by which time the Prime Minister’s fate might have been sealed by a long weekend of speculation about her future. However, Downing Street denied them that chance by calling the vote immediately, allowing her critics no time to mobilise. She chose the ground and the timing for the fight and saw them off.

But how has that helped matters? The Prime Minister remains in the same quandary, wedded to a deal that she cannot get Parliament to agree or the EU to change. She is adept at delaying decisions, largely because she knows confronting them will bring matters to a head. That is why she pulled the Commons vote on Tuesday, knowing she would lose heavily but without a plan for winning.