Another pro Leave Minister resigns

We heard a lot about the need to keep three dissident pro Remain Cabinet members in the government to justify the change on possible delay. Meanwhile yet another good Minister from the Leave side understandably felt he had to resign given the continued drift of policy away from our Manifesto. This repeats the pattern so far.

Not a single pro Remain Cabinet Minister has resigned. The PM has instead lost from the pro Leave side a Foreign Secretary, two Brexit Secretaries,  and a Work and Pensions Secretary from the Cabinet because they did not see the Chequers proposals and the Withdrawal Agreement as compatible with the Manifesto pledge to leave. The government has also lost two Brexit department Ministers, a Northern Ireland Minister and now a Fishing and Farming Minister from the Leave side. There have been 15  resignations from PPS and Vice Chairmen of the party roles as well from the Leave side. 23 resignations over the same policy is trying to tell the government something, and shows how important this matter is that so many will give up interesting jobs they wanted to keep  to make their point. I doubt there has ever been a policy in British history that has caused so many people to resign, without generating the necessary change of policy being sought.

The latest loss of George Eustice is a serious blow to the government. George is well versed in agricultural and fishing matters and was piloting through important changes for those industries so they can do better once out of the EU.  He has been both patient and willing to compromise to help the government , but now rightly feels there has been too much drift away from the Brexit we set out in the 2017 election. He will be a welcome addition to the backbench campaign to secure a proper Brexit, but is a further shift of expertise and talent from the government to the backbenches.

70 Comments

  1. Richard1
    February 28, 2019

    Well if i may say so Brexit supporting Tory MPs should have seen the writing on the wall after Chequers and got rid of Mrs May then. the direction of travel was clear. The decision should have been easy as not only was she clearly not going to implement Brexit in any meaningful sense, she had also by then proven beyond doubt to be useless on all other policy areas. even when she had a majority what pro-market, pro-business, pro-consumer, pro-freedom policies did we see from Mrs May?

    1. Richard1
      February 28, 2019

      It is an historic weakness of the Tory Party to hang on to bad leaders for too long. Sir John was right in 1995 to say “no change no chance” in respect of John Major, though many of us in Tory Associations at the time sided with Major out of ‘loyalty’. Labour might still have won in 97, but surely with a far smaller majority.

      1. Hope
        February 28, 2019

        March leave starts 16/03/2019 help wherever you can. Nigel and xo and the move. If nothing else it will wreck Tory chances in local elections. All of them need ousting.

        1. Hope
          February 28, 2019

          The Blaire tribute govt needs to go. They are more left wing than him, lie more than him and are against capitalism and free markets. Cameron called Miliband red ed trying to scare everyone not to vote for him. In contrast May implements his energy policy and declares to build on it! Then Cameron, Clegg and Miliband without consent gave a kings ransom to persuade Wcotland to remain without us having a voice on it.

          Darling gave the EU £13 billion in bail out money in 2010, plus Cameron gave £7 billion loan to Ireland while Cameron lied to say the UK was not liable. EU stated Lisbon Treaty exceptional circumstances applied even though we are not in the Euro. JR, tell us if May has signed to keep us liable for loans and debts From the EIB in her servitude plan? May is eager to say yearly come ntribtuions stop but fails to say the tens of billions she has and is willing for us to pay for Years!

          1. Lifelogic
            March 1, 2019

            Indeed the May Government is absolutely appalling. As is May herself.

          2. Richard
            March 1, 2019

            Quite. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1275923/Alistair-Darling-agrees-43bn-UK-save-Euro.html
            Just one part of the EU funding iceberg: http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/06/20/how-much-money-do-we-save-when-we-leave-the-eu/#comment-941877

            And the EU’s Budget Commissioner has confirmed that the UK would not keep the “mother of all rebates” if it held a second referendum and decided to stay in the EU: https://order-order.com/2018/10/12/uk-will-lose-rebate-stays-eu/
            Therefore, after 2020, the visible saving from a Real Brexit increases to c. £17Bn Net p.a.

    2. Lifelogic
      February 28, 2019

      Why indeed did 200 MPs have confidence in the appalling Theresa May? She is the worst and most duplicitous PM in living memory (with some very stiff competition from Brown, Heath, Cameron, Blair and Major). She wants every household in the country to pay £1600 for something that is worse than worthless.

      It is far, far worse than leaving on WTO terms for nothing.

      1. Hope
        February 28, 2019

        JR, explain to us why Costa had to resign and Rudd, Clarke and Gauke were not sacked? Leaving their respective appalling records to one side.

        1. Hope
          February 28, 2019

          Tory associations need to withdraw all support with immediate effect unless the letter of the manifesto is upheld. No support to canvass for natinoal and local elections, no raising funds no Tory party.

          1. Lynn Atkinson
            February 28, 2019

            Totally agreed! They also need to reclaim the right to freely select their candidates – not from a Remainer Party list!)

          2. Helen Smith
            March 1, 2019

            Absolutely, I have been pushing for this, it must be done.

        2. Lifelogic
          March 1, 2019

          Because Appalling May clearly agrees with the Rudd, Clarke, Gauke line.

      2. Dame Rita Webb
        February 28, 2019

        Do not worry she will not around for much longer. Matthew Parris’s column in last Saturday’s “Times” is a cracking read. Even members of socialist wing of the Conservative party, in Matthew’s words, are planning a “Rwandan like massacre” of her and her aides in Downing St. Even remoaners such as him have no time for her anymore.

        1. Lifelogic
          March 1, 2019

          Mathew Parris can occasionally be amusing but he has been consistently wrong on almost everything politically. He is essentially another remainer socialist who wrongly thinks he know best.

      3. EffGee
        March 2, 2019

        LifeLogic
        well said ~ agree 100%

    3. Hope
      February 28, 2019

      JR, you are quite wrong. These are not dissident ministers. They are acting with May’s connivance. You honestly believe the three traitors who were going to be pushed move across the floor and within a day another three traitors write an article to make public threats against the govt policy that they are responsible for to act under the control of a back bench Labour MP who demands to gain control of govt with Bercow’s help! FFS wake up.

      You think Hammond and traitors coincidently made threats by accident. Nonsense. This is about getting leave MPs to vote for May’s servitude plan. How many times do you lot need to be threatened and conned? Chequers should have been the last straw for May and Hammond.

      The pub talk from Oily Robbins coming to pass. This is choreographed.

      You should bring down the government and mean it. Hammond smirked all across his face when you lot caved the other day. Govt claims Malthouse not even being considered until phase two and when phase two happens Malthouse will be dumped. Wake up.

      1. Hope
        February 28, 2019

        Phase two ie trade deal should have been agreed as part of future relationship by no per your manifesto! May will,sell out the nation on that as well given the chance. She accepted the failing of the EU under article 50 to agree the future relationship in article 184 of her servitude plan! Staged capitulation to remain in under worse terms.

      2. Lifelogic
        March 1, 2019

        Exactly.

  2. Timaction
    February 28, 2019

    Surely time to call that vote of confidence to rid ourselves of the quisling May and her cohort. We need an election to remove the majority remainiacs from office and stand a Brexit candidate against everyone of them. Your party will never be forgiven if Mays betrayal WA gets through!

  3. fedupsoutherner
    February 28, 2019

    Why haven’t more members of the cabinet gone? Why did members leave May in charge? It’s too late for the Tory party. They are toast.

  4. Mark B
    February 28, 2019

    Sir John

    You had your chance to get rid of Mrs.May. I was never one of those calling for her removal as I felt that she was one of many of a Remain Hydra. I was wrong. Mrs.May is using other MP’s that are pro-Remain to do her dirty work for her whilst she appears to to be a lost ship in a BREXIT storm. But people forget that is was your Captain that set the course that we all find ourselves on with liferaft to freedom soon to be tossed aside.

    When we have the next GE, which I imagine will be soon, I shall do all I can to support whatever non-LibLabCON party puts up a candidate. It will not amount to much, but then again, neither did I think my little ‘x’ in a box marked, “LEAVE THE EU”.

    I am sorry sir, but she and her cohorts have ruined your once fine party. They have damaged beyond repair the good name of Conservatism for the at least another generation. And do not presume that JC will not win an election. Remember the lastime your leader thought the GE was in the bag ?

    1. Hope
      February 28, 2019

      I was she had an appalling record as HS and was prepared to sell out every British citizen for her EU arrest warrant when there was no reason, pressure or need to do so. No recourse to any legal action to pr vent being whisked off to some backwater in jail for years without Evidence! The idiot now talks about improving Social justice! It was her choice. Re read Lord Tebbits article on it.

      Dishonest May has used her traitor colleagues to put a flimsy fire wall between their actions and her. This is about getting her servitude plan through parliament Third attempt! It should be thrown out once more.

      1. Lifelogic
        March 1, 2019

        Indeed.

  5. Iain Gill
    February 28, 2019

    Please thank George Eustice for me…

    1. Lifelogic
      March 1, 2019

      And me.

      1. Lifelogic
        March 1, 2019

        But also persuade him not to vote for May’s absolutely appalling sell out.

  6. Lifelogic
    February 28, 2019

    George Eustice is indeed a sound chap, one of rather few MPs – perhaps 150 at best. In in politics it seems that only the cads and idiots get to the top alas.

    1. Stred
      March 1, 2019

      When we found a Colorado beetle in some spinach packed in Poland I emailed Mr Eustice and he quickly sent an inspector from Tilbury. He said that they are endemic on the continent. May will now appoint a useless dim Remainer.

  7. The Prangwizard
    February 28, 2019

    Loyalty surely has limits and our host’s frustration shows in the final sentence of the centre paragraph. It has been clear to many for months that May is not open to argument and persuasion. She sold out to the EU long ago and has made sure the cabinet is full of her remain supporters so action must be taken by MPs outside it and it must be revolutionary and radical.

  8. Ian wragg
    February 28, 2019

    We have lost Brexit so now we have a duty to destroy those responsible.
    Starting with the local elections in May we have to unseat every Tory, Labour and Limp Dumb councillor from office.
    There has to be a concerted effort to didrupt parliamentry businesses and bring down the rotten government.
    We now know who the enemies are so they can be defeated.

    1. rose
      March 1, 2019

      I understand you reaction but how does the course you suggest avoid putting in the most remainiac party of the lot, who are already getting dug in locally as the Liberals used to? (The No borders Extremists, otherwise known as the Greens.)

  9. Freeborn John
    February 28, 2019

    It was also shocking that May moved so quickly from resisting delay to accepting it with just one cabinet meeting on Monday. She is a complete sell out, the worst PM in history, and must be planning further sell outs likely to accept the Corbyn/EU plan for a permanent customs union and single market membership with freedom of movement.

    If there is delay beyond March 29 then it is time for the DUP to say they won’t support a government led by May anymore. I.e. the government can continue only with a new leader. This is the only productive use of the extra time after March 29. If May is still there in June she will either delay again and again or agree to Corbyn’s plan.

  10. agricola
    February 28, 2019

    Where are the men in grey suits. Presumably plotting remain. May only got where she did because the party was fearful of positive leave candidates. Now and for the future the conservative party will pay the price of indifferent leadership. I cannot speak for Lord Home and Macmillan, but appart from Winston and Margaret we have suffered a fairly lack lustre bunch at the helm. May is the culmination of decline. Sad really because the ability is there but stiffled by left of centre, PC thinking which has in effect emasculated the nation. Who will rid us of this toxic priestess.

    1. Lifelogic
      March 1, 2019

      Who indeed? But Heath, Major, Cameron and May (and indeed Blair and Brown) were not merely lack lustre, they were people who were 180 degrees out from what was needed. They all wanted more and more EU, higher and higher taxes, more and more red tape and green crap and bigger and bigger government. Plus a few pointless and highly damaging wars on top.

    2. Jagman84
      March 1, 2019

      When it was said that the Conservative party was the party of business, it was meant as being more business-friendly. The Brexit process has now revealed it as being led by the nose by international big business. Mrs May is only carrying out her orders, albeit in her usual incompetent style. She obviously fears them more than the wrath of the electorate.

  11. Peter
    February 28, 2019

    Yes but sadly Eustice seemed prepared to vote for May’s Withdrawal Agreement.

    So not really a sound Leaver in my opinion.

  12. formula57
    February 28, 2019

    Although Mr. Eustice says in his resignation letter (shown @ https://order-order.com/2019/02/28/george-eustice-resigns-minister/) to the Prime Minister (third paragraph, opening words) “I will vote for your Withdrawal Agreement when it returns to the House…”. Now why would he do that?

    He even says further (penultimate paragraph, last sentence) “We already know that in the event of “no deal” the EU will seek an informal transition period for nine months in many areas and settlement talks could continue within this window.” (So much for the cliff edge then!) Why not vote down May’s Withdrawal Surrender and follow his own suggestion?

    Mr. Eustice might helpfully explain himself further.

    1. rose
      February 28, 2019

      His letter was excellent and got it all in – except for the mystifying bit about voting for the DWA when he no longer has to. How can we go for freedom as he suggests, and yet sign this oppressive, one-sided treaty?

      But it did really cheer us up today after a black day yesterday. Perhaps it will be like when Mr Vara resigned, the start of something big.

  13. ian
    February 28, 2019

    Yes, it is funny that Mr Mogg is getting ready to support Mrs T May while another minister resigns so he can have his say about Brexit on the backbenchers.

  14. Caterpillar
    February 28, 2019

    So the Govt does not know that Brexit means Brexit. The Govt does not prepare for no deal to be better than a bad deal.

    Time to persuade PM to revoke article 50 and let us have Brexit supporting MEPs.

  15. eeyore
    February 28, 2019

    Mr Eustice isn’t be the only one. One PPS, hitherto loyalty personified, has told me he will vote against extension. The payroll vote is crumbling.

    Meanwhile the Conservatives’ doorstep and envelope-stuffing troops are deserting. Mr Farage’s Brexit party is up and running. Any Tory MP with a majority under 10,000 is no longer safe.

  16. libertarian
    February 28, 2019

    Just how dumb and out of touch are the members of the Conservative parliamentary party ?

    Missed opportunity after missed opportunity , total lack of cojones and pathetic excuses to hang onto jobs

    The political party system is fractured and about to break, permanently. Someone will step into the breach, lets hope its not an extremist party . However as members of parliament have all singled how out of touch and ignorant they are about digital tech sadly my preferred option of iDemocracy , grassroots party doesn’t look likely yet

  17. Norman
    February 28, 2019

    Encouraging news!

  18. Andy
    February 28, 2019

    George who?

    Ah – he backs Brexit. No loss then.

  19. Adam
    February 28, 2019

    George Eustice may be a loss for the Govt, yet the quality of his actions in support of our country is a substantive gain.

  20. rose
    February 28, 2019

    Actually, we have lost three Brexit Ministers. The first one, a most excellent man, and the leader of the Leave campaign in Wales, was sacked in the wake of the election disaster, for no discernible reason. If she can thus sack a real gentleman, who was loyal and correct, and still is, why can’t she sack these third rate cads?

  21. Man of Kent
    February 28, 2019

    Surely the first priority is to stop the dWA becoming a treaty.

    Get that out of the way and then hold the remainders to account for what ,or does not , happen next

  22. Simon Coleman
    February 28, 2019

    What a sad loss of so much talent! Perhaps it would be more productive if you looked at what each of those departed ministers actually achieved in government. Johnson and Davis were atrocious ministers, while Raab provided some excellent comedy during his short stint. And those still there – Leadsom, Gove, Mordaunt – what have they accomplished?

    You think that so many resignations ought to produce a shift in policy. The only shift that is possible is to leave without a deal. And that isn’t a policy – it’s a reckless gamble founded on crank economics and opposed by almost all the business community.

    Three Remain MPs actually left your party last week. But of course – that wasn’t out of principle. Only Brexit MPs have principles – that’s what you would have us believe. You are completely deluded as always. You say: ‘He has been both patient and willing to compromise…’. How do know that? You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘compromise’!

    1. Edward2
      February 28, 2019

      They resigned to be able to vote the way their consciences dictated.
      A very honourable position.

      The Withdrawal Greement is not a deal.
      It is just a set of terms to start negotiations towards a deal at some point in the future.

      Read the leaflet Simon..”This is your decision. We will implement what you decide”

  23. Lenfg
    February 28, 2019

    Brexit is being proved a disaster. Of course you blame everyone but yourself

    1. Edward2
      February 28, 2019

      Remainers are doing the negotiations.
      This should be a Brexit that suits you Lenfg.

    2. margaret howard
      March 1, 2019

      He is the equivalent of the martyrs of the Middle Ages who would go to be burnt on the stake insisting that only he knows the correct number of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

      A metaphor for wasting time debating topics of no practical value, or questions whose answers hold no intellectual consequence, while more urgent concerns accumulate

      1. Edward2
        March 1, 2019

        The time wasting started the day after the referendum vote margaret.
        It has been a deliberate campaign by Remainers to create delay and stop us leaving.

      2. NickC
        March 1, 2019

        Margaret Howard, Being an independent nation is not equivalent to deciding how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Why would you want this country to continue as Vichy-UK?

        Your EU ideology sees a whole generation wasted in southern EU as youth unemployment soared to about 50%. It is still over 30% in two major countries – Spain and Italy – and over 20% in France. That is in a third of the EU by GDP.

        1. margaret howard
          March 1, 2019

          Well the three countries you mention are the 3rd ,4th, 6th richest in the EU. Obviously doing very well in the scheme of things.

          As for the unemployment statistics, we should take them with a pinch of salt because different countries use different methods.

          I don’t know if that is true but someone wrote recently that here we count somebody who has just over 1 hour a week paid work as fully employed. If true that would hide all sorts of underhand practices.

          As the saying goes:

          “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

          1. Edward2
            March 1, 2019

            Denying the dreadful unemployment in EU nations is a new low for you margaret.

          2. margaret howard
            March 1, 2019

            Edward2

            The euro area unemployment rate was 10.3 % in 2016, down from 11.2 % in 2015

            The EU-28 unemployment rate was 8.9 % in 2016 down from 9.7 % in 2015

            http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics#Recent_developments_in_unemployment_at_a_European_and_Member_State_level
            ==

            Our own employment rates are bolstered by minimum wages or non at all if they are used as interns.

            Zero hour contracts and young people lumbered with horrendous debts after our student loan companies were sold off and trebled their charges.

            Post graduates earning a pittance in the service industries after years of study. What a future.

          3. Edward2
            March 1, 2019

            Indeed Margaret dreadfully high unemployment figures in the EU as you say.
            The average hides obscene levels of youth unemployment in several Eurozone nations.
            But the Commissionaires dont care.
            It is a price worth paying to ensure their plan for a United States of Europe ruled by them actually happens.

  24. 'None of the above'.
    February 28, 2019

    Is there any way that a GE could be brought about against the PMs wishes?

    I know it sounds drastic but I’m beginning to think that a GE would be the only way to save the Country. After all, the UK and the welfare of its people is more important than the survival of the Tory Party. Let’s be honest, the future of the Party is looking pretty bleak anyway.

  25. Pieter
    February 28, 2019

    A lot of people still don’t get it – the fix is in – and UK will be leaving according to EU and UK Govt connivance. There is no democracy left.. never was .. some things are much too complicated and too important to be left to the masses and that mistake won’t be allowed happen again..

  26. Fay
    February 28, 2019

    Brexit is being proved a disaster.

    >
    we haven’t left yet

  27. Captain Peacock
    March 1, 2019

    At the end of the day what Brexit voters want is free of the EU, we don’t want EU law/courts, EU immigration policy , EU green laws we want our country back.

  28. BCL
    March 1, 2019

    With the benefit of perfect hindsight, we should have known Mrs May was on the wrong side when she sacked David Jones. How different all this would have been had he continued in office.

    1. rose
      March 1, 2019

      Yes, this was undoubtedly the first shot fired against the Brexiteers. Besides losing a good man who had the whole of the Brexit business in his head, it started the process of isolating and humiliating Davis; and when Baker was put instead into what was to become a Potemkin Department, he (Baker) could no longer communicate with and co-ordinate the backbench Brexiteers on his very efficient system.

  29. BOF
    March 1, 2019

    ‘Not a single pro Remain Cabinet Minister has resigned.’

    I do not see anything that has happened as accidental, Sir John. From the time May was levered into No 10 she has talked the talk but the walk has been in the opposite direction.
    It is not co-incidental that only leave ministers have resigned as Mrs May and remain have worked hand in glove,

    Now the Rudds have taken control. Roland co-ordinated all the remain groups and, surprise, sister Amber is in the front rank of those threatening to resign. With the Parliamentary votes now rigged, they are in control. Those fanatical EU supporters seem oblivious to the damage being caused to the Conservative Party, but perhaps that is a secondary consideration.

  30. […] letter here – read it carefully, I’ll come back to it below. Sir John Redwood in his diary yesterday interprets the resignation quite […]

  31. Denis Cooper
    March 1, 2019

    In his resignation letter George Eustice wrote:

    “I have been open to the idea of using our existing membership of the EEA as an exit mechanism … ”

    Once again I come back to the reality that if the UK was not on the EU list of member states of the EEA, as it is now, then it would either have to move across to the EFTA list of member states of the EAA, or it would have to form a completely new category on its own as an unattached EEA member state.

    Neither of those options would be straightforward in terms of negotiating the required treaty changes, with the second probably being worse as it would involve restructuring the EEA Agreement. Then there are the questions about the constraints which such a position would still impose on the UK. However there is also the other problem, which is regularly overlooked, which is the attitude of the Irish government to the kind of customs border which operates between Norway, EFTA/EEA, and Sweden, EU/EEA:

    https://news.sky.com/video/is-the-norway-sweden-border-a-solution-for-ireland-11141058

    “Is the Norway-Sweden border a solution for Ireland?”

    And the answer then, in November 2017, was a categorical “No”, and no doubt it would still be a categorical “No” now.

    This is what Keir Starmer said on Wednesday, at Column 385 here:

    http://bit.ly/2EDkGcz

    “Since I have been in this role, I seem to have spent quite a lot of my time standing on borders looking at lorries and people going across borders. I went to the main Sweden-Norway border to see what a border looks like where a country is in the EEA, and therefore has single market alignment and free movement, but is not in a customs union. It is a hard stop – with infrastructure, with security, with paperwork – and when ​it works well, each stop takes 13 minutes. Those two countries are not operating the least efficient system that they can; they think they are operating the most efficient system that they can. I do not doubt it can be improved on, but I doubt that this workstream in the next few months is going to make the progress that many people in this House think is going to happen.”

    The Irish government made it clear at least fifteen months ago that it would not tolerate that kind of arrangement, in fact it will not tolerate anything that even implies that there is is a border, despite the incontrovertible fact that there is a border:

    “We have been very very clear from day one, there cannot be a physical border and that means ruling out cameras, that means ruling out technology, that means ruling out anything that would imply a border on the island of Ireland, it is not an option for us”.

    Note that according to the fixed EU ideology supinely accepted by Theresa May an open border on the island of Ireland requires both a customs union, inevitably depriving us of an independent trade policy, and single market alignment, and the Irish government will always insist upon both elements in any future agreement.

  32. Tony Sharp
    March 1, 2019

    The ONLY way to stop May’s treachery continuing – treachery to her own Manifesto, promises to the Cabinet, promises to the 1922, promises to the national party – is to remove her. the ONLY resignations that will matter are that the ERG resigns the Whip and either supports a No Confidence Vote by Corbyn or at least Abstains – if May still will not go, then split the Conservative Party and take the national membership the majority of local associations and stand as true Conservatives in the General Election. bStop faffing artound in the Commons with the Whips and do some real politics as happened in 1922.

    Only a policy like that matters – May will never go of her own accord and has to be summarily evicted – even if we get a WTO Brexit she will bring the carcass of her PWA back to life as a set of ‘necessary interim measures’.
    The likes of the ERG, yourself and Rees-Mogg are being played to your own destruction – May and the current majority of RemaIN EU Tory MPs are the ones who cannot be allowed to survive politically – May is the issue now, not just the EU.

  33. BR
    March 1, 2019

    As always, I agree with every word you wrote but I am also very conscious that there’s only one of us that can do anything about it (that would be you).

    So what are you doing about it? Or planning to do about it?

    I saw an article by Peston a while ago which said that May was not really safe from a leadership ‘challenge’, or at least only in the formal process sense. Apparently a Tory MP told him that any time a group of 10 or more of them (these were ERG members) walk into May’s office and tell her that they will not support the government until she goes, she is the proverbial ‘toast’.

    Given all that is happening one has to wonder why that has not happened already. Unless you’re afraid of a remainer winning the ensuing leadership vote (or coronation). But surely all you need to do is agree a candidate, get behind and stick by that person? And make sure that the person has the moral fibre to avoid being bought off and stand down to allow a coronation, in order to once again side-line any vote by the membership or anything else as inconvenient as, say, democracy.

    Please get rid of May and get a Leaver in the PM slot. Holding a GE now while the Brexit clock ticks to zero would also be an interesting way to get Brexit over the line!

    Reply You were wrongly informed. Mrs May regularly faces more than 10 Conservative MPs refusing to back what she wants to do.

  34. Martin Conboy
    March 1, 2019

    In 1997 Tony Blair swept to power with a landslide victory that gave labour a 200+ seat majority in the House of Commons. In that election Labour polled 13.5 million votes nationwide.
    I cannot believe that Theresa May will let 17.4 million leave votes go hang while she joins in competition with Labour, LibDems, SDP, TIGgers, uncle Tom Cobley and all for the 16.8 million remain voters. But on the other hand there are some in politics for whom the EU is more important than party, or even country. I hope TM is not one of them.
    As it stands, the Withdrawal Agreement is an absolute stinker of a deal, as it is tantamount to remaining in the EU forever as a non-voting member. Geoffrey Cox may succeed in bringing back from Brussels some glitter to sprinkle on it, but the EU are not going to change it one dot or comma, so it will remain a steaming great stinker of a deal.

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