In the Brexiteers’ view, Johnson’s personal baggage is already “priced in” to his reputation with Tory members, and the latest episode will make no difference to his chances of being leader. The rebellion is on, as far as they’re concerned, and he’s still the man to front it.



BuzzFeed News spoke to numerous MPs, advisers, and other Tory sources in recent weeks, who presented an ominous outlook for the prime minister.

October was meant to be the month that May would secure an agreement with the EU that ensured the steady, auspicious withdrawal voters were promised. But instead of entering the final stages with her party united behind her, May is approaching the moment of maximum danger in her premiership.

Chequers has been received with scepticism by Brussels and outright hostility by her own party. While aides in 10 Downing Street insist the proposal will be accepted, Brexiteers say they’re kidding themselves.

“They’re no more likely to accept Chequers than I am to vote for Jeremy Corbyn,” a Leave-supporting businessman said of the ERG.

Besieged and out of options, May’s hold on power has never seemed more precarious.

And yet, the sources said, the Brexiteers also have a weak hand. For all their bravado and ideological zeal, they’re running out of moves. And the clock is running down fast.

“Time is running out,” said a former senior figure in the Vote Leave campaign who is close to many senior Tory Brexiteers.

Renewed doubts about Johnson’s credentials are just one of several fundamental problems that could result in their bid to seize control of the Brexit process ending in a messy failure.

Their plan to publish an alternative to May’s Chequers deal before the party’s annual conference later this month is a mess, according to several people familiar with their thinking. And the ERG doesn’t have the backing of enough Tory MPs to defeat May in a vote of no confidence when they call it.

Senior figures in the ERG estimate they can get only 100 votes — well short of the 159 required — in a leadership challenge, insiders said. They are dependent on events changing the arithmetic, such as May agreeing to more unpopular concessions to the EU, or a badly handled domestic crisis that convinces enough Tory MPs that a change of leader is required sooner rather than later.

They can’t even count on all the Leave-supporting Tories. Prominent Brexiteers such as environment secretary Michael Gove, Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, and international secretary Penny Mordaunt, who would add a lot of weight to their push for an alternative course, have stayed loyal to the prime minister and backed Chequers.

Some senior Eurosceptics fear that the longer they wait, the more time it gives Downing Street to convince moderate Tory MPs that Chequers is the only game in town — that voting against it would result in the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal or Brexit not happening at all.



Unless the Brexiteers seize back control of the process soon, a former Vote Leave source added, May could strike an agreement with the EU that fudges the issue of the Irish border — the main sticking point in the negotiations — and puts the UK on course for a future relationship with the union that, in the Brexiteers’ view, will be “fucked”.

Ardent Brexiteers insist they’ve got no choice but to try to bring down May now. The future relationship she set out at Chequers, as they see it, would keep the UK far too closely aligned with the EU after leaving, and that would amount to a betrayal of the referendum that Leave voters would never forgive.

While these MPs publicly deny that their campaign is about changing the leader, they privately say there’s no chance of May changing her mind and adopting a harder Brexit. Destroying the Chequers plan, in their view, will almost certainly require them to force a change of leader. And they want that to happen soon — within weeks.

“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly,” said one member of the ERG, quoting Macbeth.

Not all the critics of Chequers agree.

A group of Brexiteers around David Davis — who resigned as Brexit secretary in July because he disagreed so vehemently with May’s change of approach — are less gung ho about challenging the leader. They believe May can still be convinced to abandon Chequers for a harder Brexit and want to give her time to come around. They’re unconvinced that a leadership contest is helpful and not keen on Johnson taking over.

“Our job is to find a way for the PM to have space to climb down,” one Davis ally said.

Other Brexiteers say that’s just not realistic.

“I don’t see how you can get rid of Chequers without bringing her down,” one said.

A major problem, though, is whether the hard-Brexiteers’ preferred leader even has the appetite for a coup.

Johnson had lengthy discussions with senior figures in the ERG over the summer. The ERG leaders, while insisting they’re clear-eyed about his flaws, believe Johnson is the only Brexiteer who truly has a chance of beating May before the UK leaves the union in April. Some see him as a Churchill-like figure stepping forward to save his country at a moment of national crisis. Their hopes were raised on Monday, when Johnson appeared on the front page of the Daily Telegraph in what seemed to be a declaration of intent.