1. PUSH ME, PULL YOU
When she was home secretary, Theresa May used to talk about ‘pull factors’ that attracted migrants to the UK. Today, as she braces herself for a bruising Commons statement on her revised Brexit plans, it looks like she’s created a string of new ‘push factors’ to repel Tory MPs from supporting her. And there’s huge pressure from both Labour and her own backbenchers to pull her planned publication of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, before it’s too late.
Keir Starmer told Today that May “ought to now admit defeat…she would do well to just pull the vote and pause because this is going nowhere”. But it was Michael Gove who really set the hare running when he suggested the backlash could indeed force a delay: “We will reflect over the course of the next few days on how people look at the proposition that’s been put forward.” Gove called for a ‘period of reflection and period of analysis’, and his remarks felt as much directed at May as at his colleagues. He couldn’t even say how long she’d last as PM.
If the bill is indeed published tomorrow (the last day to do so before the recess), MPs could mull over it (and maul it) over the long Whitsun break. There is a serious question mark over whether it will get its second reading in the first week of June, when Tory MPs terrified by the Farage landslide in the Euro elections return from the battlefield. The 1922 Committee executive meets this afternoon, and the ultras will push again for a rule change to force a no-confidence vote.
I’ve written HERE what it was like to be in the room as May delivered her Charing Cross Compromise speech yesterday (a limited number of hacks were allowed in, given the short notice). In many ways it was refreshingly honest and direct, and it will be fascinating to see if she maintains that stance when confronted by backbench interventions later. Today’s session in the Commons chamber could see enough torture to make Blair’s ‘masochism strategy’ look like a picnic.
Still, it’s not that May wasn’t warned. In Cabinet yesterday, chief whip Julian Smith ominously remarked the PM that it would be ‘challenging’ to get her revised deal through Parliament. The DUP had counselled it needed something stronger. And a PM’s authority must be pretty shot when Chris Grayling (yes Chris Grayling) is the man who forces her to change tack. Grayling and Leadsom led the backlash in Cabinet against stronger plans to insert a customs and referendum options on the face of the bill.
There is one faint glimmer of hope for May in that Lisa Nandy (and possibly 20 or so like-minded Labour colleagues in Leave areas who really, really don’t want a referendum) hasn’t joined in the pile-on. “There is a good case for voting the Bill through at second reading and having the debate at committee stage,” she told me, before adding that the customs plans would need serious strengthening first. But for many Labour MPs, and Tories, May’s huge strategic error in pre-announcing her departure means she’s lost any real leverage.
2. FOLLOW THE LEADER
Whoever follows May as Tory leader knows that they will probably have to resurrect her battered withdrawal agreement in some form, mainly because it’s the only thing likely to get past the EU27. But in the meantime, the various contenders know that Boris Johnson is already building up what looks like an unstoppable momentum on his way to the top job. LabourList’s poll (of the Tory leader whom Labour members most fear will harm Corbyn) put Johnson way out in front.
Gove (who has auditioned as PM in previous Brexit debates don’t forget) today refused to say if he would run. “I’ll make my views clear about what should happen in that contest clear later,” he said. Reminded that he had famously declared in 2016 that Johnson was not capable of being PM, Gove said ‘history is history’, yet didn’t sound like he’d really changed his mind. He instead said it was important to recognise a wide field of contenders. Many suspect that if Gove’s bid falls short, he’d rather back Raab (one of the few to back his leadership campaign in 2016) than Bojo. Still, the Mail reports that Gavin Williamson is now wooing MPs to back Boris.
Last night, Philip Hammond used his CBI speech to attack not just Johnson but Dominic Raab. In a clear jibe at Raab’s 5p income tax plan, the chancellor said “we must not undo a decade of hard work by the British people by making unfunded commitments”. Referring to his venue (The Brewery building in The City), Hammond was so demob happy that he even risked a sweary gag about the government’s Brexit prep: “If the CBI is trying to make a cheap point by literally organising your annual piss up in a brewery, I am going to pretend I haven’t noticed it!”
Digital minister Margot James was one of the few One Nation Caucusers on Monday to make plain she wasn’t keen on a Johnson premiership and she went further yesterday to say he was not fit for ‘high public office’. But as Rowena Mason reports in the Guardian, the real enemy for many moderate Tories is Raab. While Johnson is seen as malleable, Raab isn’t. “It’s really not a Stop Boris vehicle, if anything it is more Stop Raab,” a One Nation member says.
3. CON-VINCE-ING REMAINERS
May made a Freudian slip yesterday as she said in her speech: “Look around the world and consider the health of liberal democrats, er, liberal democratic politics.” The rude health of the Lib Dems in the local elections and looming Euro elections is certainly helping them attract support as a clearly pro-Remain party.
Today’s debate between Vince Cable and Nigel Farage underscores that both see themselves as the main contenders for each side in tomorrow’s mini-Brexit referendum. And the Lib Dems have managed to attract not just Michael Heseltine but also former Cameron pollster and Tory peer Lord Cooper. He will surely face being suspended from the whip today too. Former Cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell says he’ll vote yellow too.
Will Labour take similar action against its own peer Michael Cashman, who tweeted he would vote Lib Dems in the Euro elections? Will it need to, given the ‘auto-exclusion’ rule of not supporting rival parties? He’s not just tweeted his own view, he’s said: “I can’t trust Corbyn or the people around him on the defining issue in postwar Britain”. Cashman added: “I think I’ve just resigned from the Labour party by declaring that I will support the Liberal Democrats in the European elections.”
There is certainly a big problem for Labour MPs who back a confirmatory ballot. Although they came out quickly yesterday to condemn May’s deal for not offering a strong enough commitment, they are taking a gamble of their own. Can they really get a concrete referendum pledge into Labour’s next manifesto for the general election?
One factor that didn’t help May yesterday was the suggestion that a vote on a public vote would take place ‘early’ during the committee stage of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill. Many want such a vote to be a ‘last resort’ option, though this will be all academic if they can’t get a free vote to win the Cabinet numbers needed to squeak it over the line.
Meanwhile, ChangeUK have at least got one big backer today. Politico reports that Donald Tusk (yes the president of the European Council) has urged Londoners to vote for his former Polish Finance Minister Jan-Vincent Rostowski, who is standing for ChangeUK in the MEP elections. It’s a break with convention, that’s for sure.
BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR…
Watch this depressing encounter between Tory Brexiteer David T.C. Davies and a pro-Brexit protestor who accuses him of being a ‘traitor’ for voting for May’s deal. It comes in the middle of an interview about the abuse MPs receive.
4. ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP
Politicians who promote rape or violence should be banned for life from standing for public office, leading MPs and equality campaigners have urged Theresa May. An open letter to the PM, drafted by The Fawcett Society and published by HuffPost UK, is signed by Labour MP Jess Phillips, former Tory Cabinet minister Nicky Morgan and senior feminist campaigners including Caroline Criado-Perez. It follows an online petition, signed by 90,000 people to date, which has demanded tougher sanctions for those who intimidate women in public life.
5. YOU’RE TOXIC
Environmental Audit Committee chair Mary Creagh has written to the leader of Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council to find out what action is being taken after evidence given to the committee’s toxic chemicals inquiry indicated the presence of potentially toxic chemical residue in people’s homes. “It is astonishing that nearly two years after the fire at Grenfell, there are still questions to be asked about a clean-up to deal with the threat of contamination from toxic chemicals,” Creagh says.
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