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Theresa May speaks to Tory MPs shortly before confidence vote starts – Politics live
May tells Tory MPs before confidence vote: 'I won't fight next general election' – Politics live
(35 minutes later)
Other journalists are picking up the same news. The Mail’s Jason Groves has a direct quote.
It is becoming clear that, when Theresa May said she would not fight the next general election, there was a bit of wriggle room in her pledge. These are from ITV’s Robert Peston.
Tory MP says May told the 1922 committee: 'I won't lead the party into the next general election.'
OK. Multiple MP sources saying @theresa_may was “unambiguously clear” she will not fight next election. “That will help” said one influential MP
This is from the Sunday Times’ Tim Shipman, who had the scoop about May planning to abandon the Brexit vote this Sunday.
This is getting slightly ridiculous. Another Tory MP says @theresa_may committed only to going before 2022 if election then - but would not rule out leading party into a possible “snap” election in coming year! “We’ve got her for another three years!” was the heartfelt cry
May has told the 22 she won’t fight the next election. Ministers crying in the room
From the Conservative MP Bob Seely
David Davis comes out saying the Prime Minister made “a good speech”. #1922Committee
PM did well enough. Some hostile questions but overwhelming mood supportive. Very strongly suspect she will survive.
Labour MPs have reacted angrily to the news that the Conservatives have restored the whip to Andrew Griffiths, the MP who sent explicit texts to two young women.
From the Conservative MP Robert Halfon.
This is from Dawn Butler, the shadow women and equalities minister.
In #1922Committee told PM, that despite my differences with her over the #EUDeal, I would be supporting her in the vote this evening, and asked her to pledge that social justice would be number one priority for Government once Brexit sorted. PM made that pledge. https://t.co/fMZQWSRqua
How can Theresa May call herself a feminist when she lets an MP who was suspended for sexual harassment back into the Conservative Party to vote for her in the leadership challenge? This is a betrayal of women.
Tory MPs leaving the 1922 Committee Meeting confirm there was no announcement in next week’s business of the meaningful vote being brought to the Commons. “It could yet be next week but more likely in January,” confides a DExEU source.
And this is from the Labour MP Jess Phillips.
The corridor is starting to thin out a bit, but this is also where MPs will come to vote, and the ballot is about to open.
They said it would be different. They said we won’t let patronage and power change our minds where wrongdoing occurred. They said we won’t protect our mates. They lied, they all lied. Same old same old.
Margot James is first in queue to vote, followed my Mike Freer, Sarah Newton.
More from the 1922 Committee. These are from journalists outside the room.
This is from George Freeman MP.
May arrives to cheers and desk-banging. Aides Gavin Barwell & Stephen Parkinson struggle to gain entry
Powerful & moving moment in the #1922 as the PM makes clear that she has has listened, heard & respects the will of the Party that once she has delivered an orderly Brexit, she will step aside for the election of a new Leader to lead the reunification & renewal we need. Respect. https://t.co/oF9KizADEU
Barwell allowed in. Parkinson has to wait outside because there’s not enough room inside https://t.co/9KQ9gbohPy
Jacob Rees-Mogg clearly does not trust the PM’s promise to stand down before the election.
PM pitch to her troops latest. Much cheering and door banging. Meaning absolutely nothing all. Three different Tory MPs have told me all Tory MPs are liars in a leadership vote today.
Jacob Rees-Mogg says that the PM’s claim that it is her intention to stand down before 2022 is not definite as “intention” is “such a politician’s word”.
Ritual desk banging for @theresa_may getting out of hand in 1922 backbench committee meeting. Given the habitual treachery of her MPs, I think we can assume she is toast (JOKE!)
A quote from Margot James MP.
Theresa May arrives at 1922 Committee
Margot James MP: “I feel she will have won over waverers with her performance. People have no doubt she has done her best. I said David Cameron has got us into this impasse, and the PM has done her best to make it work.”
May just entered the 1922, banging and cheering is... not that loud. Strikingly so.
Another MP came out saying Theresa May understands now she has to get a Brexit deal that is acceptable to the DUP.
Tory MPs are arriving in the committee room where Theresa May will address the 1922 Committee.
More from the meeting.
Conservative MPs are filling the corridor outside the room where the PM will address them waiting for the doors to be opened.
Lee Rowley: “Stamina is not a policy Prime Minister”. Ouch.
The Chancellor and quite a few Cabinet ministers have arrived for this evenings 1922 Backbench Committee meeting. Jacob Rees Mogg has gone in too.
Victoria Atkins wells up as she confirms PM told the room she know she can’t lead the Tory party in the 2022 election
Amber Rudd, David Davis, both Johnsons here. #1922Committee
Told the PM said to MPs at the 1922 committee, “in my heart, I would like to lead the party into the next general election” - but she accepts that is not the will of her colleagues.
The Conservative MP Johnny Mercer, who recently described the government has a “shitshow” (he has obviously not yet heard the new Scots terminology - see 4.36pm), has recorded a video saying he will decide how to vote after listening to Theresa May at the 1922 Committee.
The corridor is now rammed. I didn’t see the PM as she came out (I’m on a bench with a laptop on my knee), but she looked happier than when she went in, according to the Spectator’s James Forsyth.
But he says some of what is happening at Westminster is “pretty shocking”. And he accuses colleagues of being two faced. He explains.
Theresa May definitely looked happier when she came out than when she went in
I am concerned today to see cabinet minister who I know are simultaneously phoning around for support for their campaigns at the same time eviscerating colleagues who may wish to think the prime minister doesn’t hold the future for them.
“It was very emotional,” another MP says on the way out. “She has devoted her life to the party.”
Another tough old day, but decency required. Certainly won’t be taking lessons from those who castigate colleagues, before reaching out for support in their own leadership campaigns. pic.twitter.com/US2nfBQjpP
Julian Smith, the chief whip, comes out. Asked how it went, he said: “Very positive.” Or a source close to the chief whip said it was “very positive”. It is not always clear what the sourcing conventions are on these occasions.
Another question from a reader.
Loud banging is coming from the committee room now. And some cheers. That’s a sign it’s over.
If May wins, does that suggest a vote for her deal? Because if later the deal is rejected, what's the point of her staying?
There is a very strong overlap between MPs voting against her tonight and MPs who say they will vote against her deal. But it is not an exact overlap. For example, our list of how MPs will vote on the deal has Heidi Allen down to vote against. But our list of how MPs will vote tonight has her down voting for Theresa May.
Another point to make is that, if 80 Tory MPs vote against her deal, then she loses that vote badly. But if 80 vote against her tonight, and everyone else votes in favour, that will look like a half-decent win.
For MPs like Allen, who dislike the deal but want to keep May, the logic is - she’s better than any of the alternatives.
There are now 160 Tory MPs who have gone on the record to say they will vote for Theresa May, my colleague Matthew Weaver reports.
Confidence vote: majority of Tory MPs publicly back May
As the weeks, months and years roll on, it becomes increasingly difficult to alight on fresh turns of phrase to describe to ongoing calamity that is Brexit.
Thanks be then for “clusterbùrach, the onomatopoeic descriptive now taking hold at Holyrood and beyond, most recently referenced by the Scottish government’s Michael Russell in his latest Brexit update to the chamber on Wednesday afternoon.
The phrase is a compression of “clusterfuck” and the Gaelic word “bùrach”, meaning “mess”, and has been doing the rounds on Twitter, in newsprint, in the Scottish parliament and yesterday in the Commons itself, courtesy of SNP MP Hannah Bardell.
Here’s me raging on behalf of my Livingston constituents, Scotland and anyone in the UK who thinks this is a complete Clusterburach (complete shambles). I am beyond angry 😡 WE DESERVE BETTER. #BrexitDebate #BrexitChaos pic.twitter.com/cZkQvesylm
It was coined, according to Russell, by the Gaelic scholar Hugh Dan MacLennan. As with all great phrasing, there is some disagreement over its parentage, with Times Scotland columnist Kenny Farquharson recalling that he dreamt it up earlier in the year. If only that were the worst thing folk had to argue about right now ...
Scotland’s Brexit secretary Michael Russell has addressed the Holyrood chamber earlier, in a statement that had been initially scheduled as his official response to yesterday’s now-postponed vote on May’s Brexit deal.
Describing the prime minister’s behaviour around the meaningful vote as “disgraceful and contemptuous”, Russell went on to commend to the chamber Monday’s ruling from the European court of justice on article 50, and its implications for a second referendum with the option of continued EU membership on the ballot. He said:
With that certainty in place [that the UK parliament can revoke Article 50 unilaterally], putting the choice back in the hands of the people must now be taken seriously.
This might raise eyebrows amongst those who previously heard senior Scottish government figures privately dismissing the article 50 case, which was led by six Scottish politicians, as a foolhardy pursuit. The six included the SNP MP Joanna Cherry who, according to a column by former SNP MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, “came under substantial pressure from people who should have known a great deal better to drop her involvement in the case”.
Russell ended with an inevitable nod to a potential second independence referendum, warning that “if we can’t find a way to save the UK from itself then we must find a way to save Scotland from the UK”.
Ireland’s opposition leader has warned that the country’s economy was in “heightened danger” because of a “fundamentalist fringe” in the Tory party.
In a rare break in the unified front in Irish Brexit politics, Micheál Martin, has warned that “Ireland is nowhere near ready for many of the outcomes which have become far more likely in recent days” including no deal.
But the Fianna Fail leader, whose party are propping up taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s minority government, pulled back from triggering a general election process arguing that it was not in the national interest during such precarious times.
Announcing he would be extending the confidence and supply agreement with the Fine Gael party, Martin warned the chaos in Britain would “not be allowed to spread to Ireland”. He said today’s no-confidence vote in London was the result of a “fundamentalist group” in the Conservative party who “seem to be determined to destroy all around them rather than ever compromise”. He went on:
Their extreme Europhobia has developed over forty years and it will not respond to evidence or reason.
Both Tory MPs who have had the whip removed are having it restored to allow them to vote tonight, ITV’s Robert Peston reports.
Two suspended Tory MPs get whip back for tonight's big vote - Elphicke and Griffiths. They probably cancel each other out (Griffiths for her, Elphicke against)
Charlie Elphicke was suspended over alleged sexual offences, which he denies.
And Andrew Griffiths was suspended for sending sexually explicit text message to two much younger women.
Another 10 MPs have publicly declared they will be backing May in the vote, taking her running total to 160. If they all vote the same way in private as they have declared in public May will coast it.
Here’s the latest batch:
Christopher Pincher “We need to let her get on with a solution to the backstop and finish the job”
Mike Freer “She continues to have my unqualified support”
Roger Gale “She has my fullest support and the support, I believe, of a clear majority of my colleagues”
Chris Grayling told PA: “Theresa May is the best person to make sure we actually leave the EU and deliver on the Brexit that I and the people of our great country voted for.”
Jeremy Wright told PA: “She deserves that support but also because the country does not need this distraction right now”.
Claire Perry “Today’s leadership challenge is a silly act of self-indulgence by those who want to risk no deal or n o Brexit”
Karen Bradley “I will be voting for the prime minister”
Maggie Throup “The prime ,inister has, and will continue to have my full support”
Stephen Kerr “She has shown herself to be a pragmatic and sensible leader who has put the country first. She has my full confidence”
Gareth Johnson “I don’t believe changing the prime minister now whilst she is making efforts to improve the deal is the best approach”
Confidence vote: majority of Tory MPs publicly back May
On the BBC earlier Liam Fox, the Brexiter international trade secretary, suggested the cabinet might oppose Theresa May’s Brexit deal being put to a vote in the Commons without changes to the backstop. As the Express reports, asked if he could accept it without changes to the backstop, Fox replied:
I think it is very difficult to support the deal if we don’t get changes to the backstop.
I don’t think we will get through. I’m not even sure if the cabinet will agree for it to be put to the House of Commons.
Alert readers will remember that Fox and other members of the cabinet have agreed to support the deal already, at that five-hour meeting in November. Fox seems to want the chance to think again.
