Prime minister ‘as vulnerable as she’s ever been’ as pressure from both sides of Tory party grows

Theresa May is under growing pressure from both wings of her own party to offer more clarity in public about what Brexit deal Britain wants, or face the mounting risk of a no-confidence vote.

Downing Street sources have confirmed that rather than setting out a fresh vision of Brexit in the spring, as some colleagues had hoped, May will make a more limited speech focusing on security cooperation at a conference in Munich next month.

With pro-Brexit MPs in open revolt, senior Conservatives are warning that unless the prime minister exerts firmer leadership over the issue she could be deposed.

“She’s as vulnerable as she’s ever been,” one backbencher told the Guardian. “She’s got to make a decision.”

Mount Tory is ready to blow over Brexit – and May can’t stop it | Polly Toynbee Read more

Pro-EU MPs were alarmed by the show of strength by Eurosceptics last week, which saw Downing Street disown remarks by Philip Hammond that the UK and EU economies should diverge only “very modestly” after Brexit.

Brexit supporters threw their weight behind the prime minister in the wake of last year’s general election, fearing that any alternative candidate might abandon her pledges to ditch the single market and the customs union.



But they have become increasingly vocal in recent weeks amid fears that the government’s approach is softening. Both sides are frustrated with the prime minister’s apparent unwillingness to set out her stance in more detail.

The former Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers became the latest to go public this weekend, using an article in the Sunday Telegraph to warn that Britain risks remaining in the EU “in all but name”.

“Since the prime minister set out a bold vision in her Lancaster House speech, the direction of travel seems to have gone in only one single direction: towards a dilution of Brexit.

“If the government goes too much further down that path, there is a real danger that it will sign up to an agreement which could keep us in the EU in all but name, and which would therefore fail to respect the referendum result,” Villiers said.

Brexiters have been disturbed by reports that senior civil servants, led by the chief negotiator, Ollie Robbins, have been offering a series of compromises to EU officials, including continued membership of the customs union.

One cabinet minister dismissed the reports on Sunday night as “black propaganda from Brussels”, or a misinterpretation of the idea of a “customs partnership” that was floated by the government in a white paper last year.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jacob Rees-Mogg: ‘I’m being as loyal as could possibly be on the policy question, and I am biting my tongue on the personality question.’ Photograph: PA

But a senior pro-Brexit Tory said: “It comes back to the fact that no one knows what the prime minister really thinks – everyone’s projecting their worst fears on to her.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg, chair of the European research group of pro-leave backbenchers, hinted strongly on Sunday that he would like Hammond to be sacked.

“I tend to disagree with the chancellor on many things, but on this issue he seems to be disagreeing with government policy, the Conservative party manifesto and Mrs May’s speeches. This is real trouble for the government. The history of chancellors being in opposition to prime ministers is not a good one or an encouraging one,” he told ITV’s Peston on Sunday.



Pressed on whether the chancellor should lose his job, he added: “I’m being as loyal as could possibly be on the policy question, and I am biting my tongue on the personality question.”

Meanwhile, a string of headlines about allegations of cash-for-influence, and the personal life of the defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, also caused disquiet among moderate backbenchers, who are concerned about the damage being sustained to their party.

Heidi Allen, MP for South Cambridgeshire, tweeted her disapproval of what she called the Conservatives’ “old guard” on Sunday, saying her party needed to, “get a grip and lead”.

Heidi Allen (@heidiallen75) And yet the old guard hangs on in and doesn’t understand why we need to change, saying MPs like me aren’t ‘proper Torys.’ Good God we need to get a grip and lead. We are letting this country down. pic.twitter.com/p1wANY4gpU

The backbench MP Johnny Mercer, sometimes touted as a potential leadership candidate, told the Sunday Times that at the next general election Jeremy Corbyn “could well be prime minister if we don’t get our shit together”.

Under Conservative party rules, a vote of no confidence would be held if 15% of MPs – 48 under current parliamentary arithmetic – write to the chair of the backbench 1922 committee, Graham Brady. One report in the Sun last week suggested as many as 40 may already have done so.

The Cabinet Office minister, David Lidington, urged his rowing colleagues to “come together in a spirit of mutual respect” on Sunday, warning that the Tories remain “neck and neck” with Labour and should focus their fire on the opposition, not each other.



“I think what I’d say to all my colleagues is that the Conservative family – left, right and centre, because we’re a broad church – has to come together in a spirit of mutual respect,” he said.

Play Video 1:01 Tories must unite in 'spirit of mutual respect', says David Lidington – video

With the cabinet’s Brexit subcommittee due to meet this week, ministers privately admit deep differences remain about how much the UK should allow itself to diverge from the EU in future.

Lidington said that a future government would “have the choice whether or not to diverge, once we’ve left the supranational legal structures of the EU”.

But it is unclear how much leeway Brussels, which will publish its negotiating guidelines for the next phase of the talks on Monday, would be willing to allow Britain while granting the “frictionless” access to EU markets the government is demanding.

The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, plans to deliver a speech on what he calls the liberal case for Brexit in the next few weeks, which could spark fresh discord if it appears to differ from the prime minister’s approach.

It also emerged that energy minister Claire Perry had described Leavers angry about the so-called divorce bill as “swivel-eyed”.

Perry’s remarks came in a WhatsApp message to a private group of Tory MPs which was obtained by the Telegraph. It was sent last month as Theresa May agreed to pay the European Union a £39bn “divorce bill” as part of efforts to break a logjam in exit negotiations and begin trade talks.

Perry was responding to Tory MP Ben Bradley, who said he was “getting some shit from the usual subjects about sell-outs and traitors” over the financial settlement.

According to the newspaper, Perry replied: “The ‘sell out traitor mob’ should be ignored. Listening to them means wrecking the economy in the short term and via a Corbyn government delivering a long steady slow decline for the country we love.

“I would hypothesise that they are mostly elderly retired men who do not have mortgages, school-aged children or caring responsibilities so they represent the swivel-eyed few not the many we represent.”

Responding to the publication of her message, Perry said: “Passions were running high as we all worked to get the Brexit bill through and mine regrettably spilled over.”