European Research Group chair suggests PM will be ousted if she fails to deliver on Brexit red lines

Jacob Rees-Mogg has issued a thinly veiled warning to Theresa May suggesting she would be ousted by the Conservative party if she failed to deliver on her original Brexit red lines.



The Tory MP criticised the government for giving way on all of its objectives, including freedom of movement and the jurisdiction of the European court of justice, during the 21-month transition period agreed in Brussels last week.

Rees-Mogg, the chairman of the Brexit-backing European Research Group, criticised “cave dwellers” who wanted the UK to stay in the EU, saying if they were successful it would be a “national humiliation” based on lies.



“What this is about is softening people up to extend the transition, delay, frustrate and potentially deny,” he said.

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In a speech to mark one year until Brexit, the MP said a failure to leave the EU would be a worse calamity than the Suez crisis and “the most almighty smash” to the national psyche of the British people.

“It would be an admission of abject failure ... that we were too weak to be able to govern ourselves and that therefore we had to go crawling back to the mighty bastion of power that is Brussels,” he said.

Rees-Mogg suggested May would face the fury of her own backbenchers if she pushed through a soft Brexit with the support of Labour votes.

“I’m sure that the prime minister knows her history, and I’m sure that she knows how Lord Peel got the repeal of the corn laws through,” he said. “No Conservative leader would ever wish to get through so major a piece of legislation again on the back of opposition votes.”

The Tory Robert Peel had to resign as prime minister in 1846 after he joined with the Whigs and the Radicals to force through the repeal of the protectionist Corn Laws against the wishes of many in his party.



Rees-Mogg declined to say whether he would stand for the Tory leadership in order to make sure the UK stuck to its red lines. “No, I won’t make any such commitment, I’m fully supporting Mrs May,” he said. “I’m sure she won’t break our red lines.”

His remark about “cave dwellers” came after Tony Blair repeated his call for a second referendum and for MPs to be given a “meaningful” vote rather than the “take it or leave it” one promised by ministers.

In a pitch to Tory remainers, the former Labour prime minister had suggested that if Brexit took place, it would be “fully owned” by the Conservatives, with many Brexiters “short on gratitude” and remainers “unlikely to forget” come the next election.

In comments unlikely to encourage the Labour frontbench to take a firmer stance against leaving the EU, Blair said: “Brexit is not the route to escaping a Corbyn government; it is the gateway to having one.”

Rees-Mogg compared remain supporters who refused to accept the referendum result with a Japanese soldier who surrendered nearly 30 years after the end of the second world war.

He argued that restoring Britain’s constitutional order would lead to better government where power and responsibility “go hand in hand”.