Theresa May stays, for now
Theresa May stays, for now. At around 9pm, Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee, announced that 200 Tory MPs had voted for Theresa May and 117 voted against, getting May the simply majority of 159 out of 317 votes she needed to carry on. That roughly chimes with estimates of how the votes would fall: 174 MPs had declared their intention to vote for Theresa May and 33 against. Around 100 MPs have voiced public opposition to the deal in the past couple of weeks.
Theresa May gave a statement outside Number 10, in really robotic style, perhaps betraying the fragility of her position: “We need to get on with the job,” she said. Nothing has changed…
“This is a terrible result for the Prime Minister”, said Jacob Rees-Mogg in response. He’s right – the vote does not change the arithmetic in May’s favour either on the ‘meaningful vote’ on the withdrawal agreement, said to be held in January, or on the subsequent withdrawal treaty bill which must pass through both Houses of Parliament.
117 voted against her – over a third of the Conservative parliamentary party. It isn’t a great result for the ERG group either. They can now no longer use a no confidence vote to unseat May for the next year. Events will now unfold without a direct hatchet job staged from the Tory backbenches.
She only managed 200 partly because of a last-ditch promise not to fight the next general election to MPs at the 1922 committee shortly after 5 O’clock. She did not clarify whether that meant she would go after Brexit is delivered (in whatever form) in April or would stand down at some as yet unspecified date before the 2022 election.
According to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, an MP said that there were “people in tears inside the room” as Theresa May spoke to assembled MPs.
Throughout the day, cabinet ministers went out to bat for May. Michael Gove, environment secretary, said: “no one is better placed to ensure we deliver on the British people’s decision to leave the EU. Chancellor Philip Hammond turned up the heat on the Brexiteers in the party: “I think what this vote today will do is flush out the extremists.”
The vote may have bought May a little time as she continues her tour of Europe. She is set to travel to Brussels tomorrow to try to persuade EU leaders to give further ‘reassurances’ on the Northern Ireland backstop.
The pound fell after news of the result in the confidence vote, down 0.44% against the dollar, illustrating that the markets had priced in continued political instability over the past couple of days.
On the broader implications, chances of a Norway-style alternative, or even a second referendum, have further diminished as the time-scale looks tighter, while managed no deal looks increasingly likely. There is no majority for any alternative and her pitch is sunk. Leave is the law and we will leave on the 29th March 2019, come what may.
It is also difficult not to conclude that the most successful democratic party in the free West has irrevocably lost its way.
With a leader who has lost the confidence and trust of a third of her own party and fundamentally divided on the important questions – sovereignty, law, our constitution, our place in Europe and in the world, there is no doubt that a split in the parliamentary party is coming and that the ethic of continuity and good judgement that has so long bound the raucous and disparate tribes of Tory England and the rest of the UK into a whole now lies dormant.