Theresa May survives no confidence vote
British Prime Minister Theresa May has survived a confidence vote from her Conservative party, but more than a third of her lawmakers said she was no longer the right leader to implement Britain’s exit from the European Union.
Prime Minister Theresa May outside 10 Downing Street after surviving a vote of no confidence. Photo: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire
Britain’s March 29 exit has been plunged into crisis by parliamentary opposition to the divorce deal she struck with the EU last month, which has opened up possibilities including a delay to Brexit or even another referendum on membership.
May on Monday cancelled a parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal, designed to maintain close future ties with the bloc and agreed after two years of negotiations, after it became clear she would lose it badly.
Eurosceptic critics of the deal within her own party triggered a no-confidence vote in her leadership hours after she returned from talks with European leaders aimed at winning additional assurances about her deal.
After two hours of voting in Committee Room 14 in the House of Commons, Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers, said 200 Conservative lawmakers had voted in support of May as leader, and 117 against, indicating her party was bitterly divided over the direction of Brexit.
Supporters said the result showed the party should now get behind her. But the hardline Brexit supporters who triggered the vote because they saw her deal as a betrayal of the 2016 referendum said she should now quit.
“It is a terrible result for the prime minister,” Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of a hard Brexit faction in the party, told BBC Television. “The prime minister must realise that, under all constitutional norms, she ought to go and see the queen urgently and resign.”
But May loyalist Chris Grayling, her transport minister, said the party had endorsed her “comfortably”.
May, who voted to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum, had warned opponents of her withdrawal deal – struck after two years of negotiations – that if they toppled her, Brexit would be delayed or stopped.
Shortly before the vote, May sought to win over wavering politicians by promising to step down before the 2022 election.
Brexit is Britain’s most significant political and economic decision since World War Two. Pro-Europeans fear the departure will weaken the West as it grapples with the US presidency of Donald Trump and growing assertiveness from Russia and China.
The outcome will shape Britain’s economy, have far-reaching consequences for the unity of the kingdom and determine whether London keeps its place as one of the top two global financial centres.
May, 62, won the top job in the turmoil that followed the 2016 EU referendum, where Britons decided by 52 per cent to 48 to leave the EU.
– Reuters
