Johnson
could sacrifice majority by withdrawing whip from rebel MPs
Rebel
Tories face deselection over Brexit, as PM abruptly cancels meeting with group
including ex-ministers
Jessica
Elgot Chief political correspondent
@jessicaelgot
Sun 1 Sep
2019 22.00 BST Last modified on Mon 2 Sep 2019 01.11 BST
Boris
Johnson has abruptly cancelled a planned meeting with rebel Tory MPs opposed to
no-deal Brexit. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters
Boris
Johnson is prepared to blow up his own parliamentary majority and withdraw the
whip from dozens of Conservative MPs if they back plans to stop no-deal Brexit,
Tory whips have warned potential rebels, in an extreme move by Downing Street
that would pave the way for an imminent general election.
As
hostilities escalated, Johnson also signalled how serious his intention is to
follow through the threat of deselection by abruptly ripping up plans for a
meeting with rebellious former ministers, including Philip Hammond and David
Gauke, that had been billed as a last-ditch effort to limit support for the
action in parliament.
Hammond was
offered a one-to-one meeting with the prime minister which he declined, calling
it “discourteous” to cancel on the group.
“There has
been very little attempt at engagement with us, but these people were going in
seeking proof of genuine attempts to get a Brexit deal,” one source close to
the MPs said. “The fact it had been cancelled at short notice suggests there
isn’t a proper negotiation going on. The next point of engagement will be in
the voting lobbies.”
The former
cabinet ministers supporting a cross-party bid to stop no deal fought back on
Sunday night, telling MPs they must be prepared to take the government to court
if it defied any law passed by rebel MPs in parliament.
The threat
was prompted by a suggestion from Michael Gove that the government may not feel
bound by the legislation.
Ahead of a
historic week in parliament, a fierce briefing war erupted across the
Conservative party as whips convened for Sunday lunch with Johnson at the prime
minister’s country retreat at Chequers, agreeing that any Conservative MP who
voted on the rebel legislation would have the whip withdrawn and become
ineligible to stand for the party.
“The whips
are telling Conservative MPs today a very simple message – if they fail to vote
with the government on Tuesday they will be destroying the government’s
negotiating position and handing control of parliament to Jeremy Corbyn,” said
a senior source in the whips’ office source. “Any Conservative MP who does this
will have the whip withdrawn and will not stand as a Conservative candidate in
an election.”
No 10
believes the nuclear threat of deselection, and its unprecedented consequence
of removing the whip of a former chancellor and justice secretary just weeks
after they left government, has a serious chance of spooking MPs and wiping the
majority for any no-deal legislation in parliament.
Government
sources conceded that the practical reality of removing the whip from a
significant number of MPs could inevitably lead to a general election.
Without
more than 20 MPs currently planning to vote against the government, it would be
impossible for Johnson to manage in minority government.
“For a
government that has a majority of one which has repeatedly said it does not
want an election, to then threaten to deselect 20 MPs, well it suggests that it
is not the case,” one prominent rebel said.
The whips’
office source said the seriousness of the threat was to underline that MPs
would be deliberately scuppering the chance of a Brexit deal. “There is a
chance of a deal on 17 October only because Brussels realises the prime
minister is totally committed to leaving on 31 October,” the source said.
Ex-ministers,
including Hammond and Gauke, voiced outrage at the threat, calling it hypocrisy
that a cabinet with eight former rebels at its heart could then threaten MPs
with deselection.
A source
close to the MPs under threat of deselection said they would not be deterred:
“This is sheer hypocrisy. Almost a quarter of the current cabinet have voted
against the party whip. But this is about the national interest, and we’ve
moved beyond the point where threats will persuade people to abandon their
principles.”
The
suggestion by Gove that the government could defy the law also sparked fury
from MPs, including one former Tory minister who said it showed democracy was
under threat from Johnson’s government.
One source
close to the group of ex-ministers said Gove’s comments underlined the urgency
of passing the bill this week, to allow time for legal action if the government
rejected the new law or if Johnson refused to follow its direction to seek an
extension to the Brexit deadline.
“This
legislation will need to be taken to the courts if the government decides not
to abide by it,” a senior source close to the Conservative rebels said. “That
is precisely why we have to act next week. In October, we will not have enough
time. It is literally now or never.”
A bill
which would mandate another extension of article 50 has been drafted which
senior sources said would go into more detail about the length of an extension
– unlike the previous law passed by Yvette Cooper and Oliver Letwin which did
not specify a timeframe.
Letwin is
expected to lead the bill’s presentation, though the effort has been closely
coordinated with the shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer and the Labour
frontbench. On Tuesday, MPs are expected to immediately ask the Commons
Speaker, John Bercow, for an emergency debate under the standing order 24 rule,
debates which traditionally end with a neutral motion.
However,
rebels hope the Speaker will allow a vote on a motion to set aside Wednesday
for MPs to take control of the Commons order paper to pass a bill through all
stages in the Commons.
Corbyn will
convene a meeting of the shadow cabinet on Monday to outline the plans, saying
Labour will do “everything necessary to pull our country back from the brink”.
Starmer
said the bill would be “a very short, simple exercise designed to ensure we
don’t crash out without a deal,” saying the length of an extension was a
“secondary” concern.
“It will be
as simple as it possibly can be,” said one source close to the cross-party
talks. “That is the only way to keep the coalition together.”
In an
interview with the BBC, Gove repeatedly refused to rule out the possibility
that the government could ignore any law passed by parliament to stop a no-deal
Brexit. “Let’s see what the legislation says,” he said. “You’re asking me about
a pig in a poke.”
Starmer
called for Johnson to make an urgent statement on Gove’s comments. “For
ministers not to confirm that this government will accept and comply with
legislation lawfully passed is breathtaking,” he tweeted.
The
Conservative MP Guto Bebb, a supporter of the People’s Vote campaign for a
second referendum, said Gove had shown the “our very democracy is now under
threat from Boris Johnson and his government”.
MPs who
have been now been denied the meeting with Johnson said they had planned to
challenge the prime minister on the need to devise a concrete proposal for a
new deal and demanded a positive reaction from the EU in order to be convinced
of Johnson’s sincerity.
“We are now
less than three weeks away from the 30-day deadline for an alternative to the
backstop,” said a source close to the group. “This is a group who are all
reconciled that the best outcome is a Brexit deal. They genuinely want to see
helpful signs – so is the prime minister able to give them new, concrete
evidence that a deal is in play?”
Speaking on
Sky News, Gauke said he hoped that Johnson would not follow through with
threats to withdraw the whip but suggested it would not change his mind.
“Sometimes there is a point where ... you have
to judge between your own personal interests and the national interest. And the
national interest has to come first,” he said.
“But, I
hope it doesn’t come to that, and I hope cooler and calmer heads will look at
this and think that trying to split the Conservative party in this way is not a
sensible way forward for the Conservative party, or indeed for the country.”
Former
Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt and former health minister Stephen
Hammond – both of whom have made clear they will vote for measures to stop no
deal – also voiced fury at the threat.
Burt said
he had “loyally supported” Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement and voted three
times to leave the EU, unlike members of the current cabinet like Jacob
Rees-Mogg. “Why am I now being threatened and not them?” he tweeted.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário