Ian Birrell: Has there ever been a bunch of more selfish politicians?

It is hard not to conclude that the Tory hard right are intent on destroying their party and handing the country to Jeremy Corbyn as they move to depose Theresa May at this point in the corrosive Brexit process. Yes, she has made a series of dire mistakes, including triggering article 50 with no idea of how to achieve departure from the European Union and then throwing away her party’s majority. But for all her many failures, now is not the time to oust her amid political deadlock and a national crisis.

Has there ever been a bunch of more selfish politicians than these extremists, who have already sacrificed the previous three Tory prime ministers on the altar of their obsession with Europe? It was hard not to spew up my cereal listening to Bernard Jenkin, one of their shop stewards, claiming on the radio that “this is not a matter of self-indulgence … not a matter of one faction over another”. Once again, duplicitous chancers seek to deceive the electorate with cheap soundbites as they fight internal battles. Yet we can see with disturbing clarity now that Brexit could not be further from the national interest.

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Is it any wonder voters have lost faith with politicians as they observe such arrogant behaviour at Westminster? The Brexiteers, many having fled office after discovering the difficulty of turning shallow slogans into reality, still spout their platitudes, shift stances with slippery ease and fail to answer the complex questions they posed. Yet they blame the prime minister for failing to do their factional bidding. The Tory insurgents are driven by one thing only: taking back control of their own careers, regardless of any cost to a country they see merely as collateral damage. Look at how the repellent Boris Johnson jokes about his weight as he limbers up for another tilt at the leadership, despite his record for incompetence and laziness as foreign secretary.

His oleaginous fellow Old Etonian Jacob Rees-Mogg marshals the army of hardliners. Yet it is fair to question whether anyone closely associated with the costly mess of Brexit, let alone these people who treat poorer citizens with such contempt, should ever be allowed close to power again.

Meanwhile the jockeying for succession has started. So the supposedly loyal home secretary, Sajid Javid, has staked out his claim and even Esther McVey is acting coy over whether she wants the top job. “I’m quite enjoying this,” said one cabinet minister to me last night. “The country needs a revolution.”

I am not enjoying this – not least since I have reported on revolutions in several nations, and know how they spin out of control, and nor, I suspect, are vast swaths of the country finding this fun. Most people desperately want politicians to focus on things that really matter such as our crumbling social care system, faltering health service and lack of affordable housing. Instead they witness pathetic, self-serving political games as the Tory civil war over Europe threatens to claim its next victim, even as the conflagration it has sparked threatens the country’s future.

• Ian Birrell is a former speechwriter for David Cameron

Katy Balls: May’s critics may have moved too soon

After a year of false alarms, the 48 letters required for a confidence vote in Theresa May are finally in. But have May’s critics moved too soon?

The prime minister’s decision on Monday to postpone the vote on her Brexit deal sent ripples through the party, and led some to ask: if the vote is not until January, why not get a new prime minister in place before then? May’s insistence in the chamber that she was looking for minor rather than major changes to her deal (and specifically the issue of the Irish backstop) led a new batch of Eurosceptics to send in their letters. Meanwhile, remain MPs have begun to ask whether her indecision means that May is part of the problem.

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But that’s not to say the majority of Tory MPs have come round to the merits of a Christmas leadership contest. All the signs so far suggest centrist Tory MPs are rallying round May in a move against the Brexiteers. Already the narrative appears to be one of hard Brexiteers moving against her in a bid to fight for a cleaner exit – rather than MPs from across the party running out of patience with a stubborn PM.

Not that May’s survival is a shoo-in. If May wins the vote this evening – to do this she must win the support of half of her MPs plus one – then she is immune from challenge for a whole year. Critics of May who are less fussed about Europe had hoped to move against her in the spring once the issue of Brexit had in large been dealt with. This is no longer an option.

Conservative MPs are now faced with a difficult choice: oust the prime minister and face a bloody leadership contest with just months before the UK leaves the EU – or back May and risk her leading the Tories into a general election.

• Katy Balls is the Spectator’s political correspondent

Andrew Gimson: May has failed. Most of her MPs can see that

Every so often the Conservatives stage a tremendously exciting leadership contest. Theresa May is now trying to avert such a contest by clinging on for at least another year, as she will be entitled to do if she wins tonight’s vote among Tory MPs.

She is trying to bounce her colleagues into sticking with her. But can they stand another year of May? And is it in the country’s interest to let her plod on in her astonishingly uninspiring way for another 12 months? And is it in the party’s interest?

For her authority is already shot to pieces. She has attempted, with the utmost conscientiousness, to negotiate a compromise on Brexit. With a truly Anglican dedication to the middle way, she has sought to guide the country “through the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and No” (as Cardinal Newman put it in a different context).

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This week she suffered the humiliation of postponing, a day before it was due to be held, the parliamentary vote on her compromise, which had succeeded in dismaying almost everyone. Off she went on a tour of European capitals in order to beg for some meaningless “assurances” from her fellow leaders, who know she is pitifully weak.

Can Conservative MPs bear to watch her go on crawling round Europe in search of a marginally better form of words? Or is it time for a new and bolder approach? In the country, I think there is a strengthening view that we need to be bold, and if necessary to leave with no deal. May has failed. Most of her own MPs can see that. Their choice tonight is between a busted leader and a bold one.

• Andrew Gimson is contributing editor to ConservativeHome