Brexit crisis: British PM facing leadership challenge

Michael Gove talks to the media in Westminster this morning.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove, tipped as a frontrunner for the Conservative Party leadership should Theresa May lose tonight, has predicted a comfortable victory for the Prime Minister.

“I think the Prime Minister will win tonight and she will win handsomely,” Gove said, according to Britain’s Press Association. “I regret that a leadership contest has been triggered, but I respect my colleagues.”

Gove cast the vote as a battle to ensure Brexit goes ahead, telling reporters: “The one thing I would ask every Conservative MP to do is to ponder before they cast their vote this evening: If we don’t support the Prime Minister, then we risk derailing or diluting Brexit.”

“If we do support the Prime Minister we can honor the mandate that the British people have given us,” he added.

Gove himself launched a futile bid for leadership of the Conservative Party in 2016, which May eventually won. But he denied he still has leadership ambitions of his own.

Margaret Thatcher is the only Prime Minister to have been forced out in a ballot by her own MPs.

No Prime Minister has faced as many threats to her leadership as Theresa May –- and it’s getting more and more difficult to distinguish one crisis in British politics from the next.

But tonight’s vote of no confidence is a new kind of challenge. If May loses, she’ll join Margaret Thatcher as the only prime minister to be removed from office by a ballot of her own MPs.

Thatcher’s premiership was plunged into a three-week crisis after she was challenged by her former Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine, with the Conservative Party losing public support and similarly split over the issue of Europe.  

“I fight on, I fight to win,” Thatcher famously declared with a defiance echoed in May’s speech outside Downing Street this morning. But with her authority severely crippled after she failed to win the support of a majority of MPs in the initial ballot, Thatcher resigned to allow a three-way leadership contest to take place.

Five years later, the winner of that contest – John Major – himself called a leadership contest, to stare down the critics within his party. May will be hoping her vote mirrors his; Major won comfortably, and went on to lead the Conservative Party into the 1997 general election.

Before today, the only vote to take place under the Conservative Party’s current rules happened in 2003, when Iain Duncan Smith lost a confidence ballot triggered by his own MPs and was forced to step down. Needless to say, that’s a result May will be desperate to avoid. 

As Conservative Party members of parliament declare how they’ll be voting tonight, Prime Minister Theresa May’s staff – and plenty of onlookers – will be frantically counting the numbers on each side.

The key threshold is 158 – that’s an outright majority of the 315 Conservative MPs in the House of Commons. If May gets to that number, she would be free to remain as Conservative leader, and she’ll be safe from another challenge for a year.

Anything less and May will have to resign, meaning the Conservative Party will have a new leader – and Britain a new Prime Minister.

Another thing to watch out for, though, is the margin of victory. If May scrapes by, there could well be calls for her to step aside anyway. If she wins comfortably, her authority at the helm of the Conservative Party could look more secure than it has for some time.

*Warning, warning, this is not a prediction* 

Ever since her snap election disaster in 2017, Theresa May has had a lot of worst weeks. 

It’s hard to remember a Prime Minister being told so often that their premiership was on life support.

But every time she faces the firing squad, she has come out fighting – and has managed to hang on. 

Her performance during Prime Minister’s Questions today was vintage resilient May, as was her statement outside Downing Street. 

This is absolutely not a prediction that May will survive tonight. It’s just always worth pointing out that when her back is against the wall, May seldom blinks – and those attacking her have more often than not come off worse. 

Merkel answers questions during Question Time at the Bundestag (Germany's lower house of parliament) on Wednesday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel again ruled out further discussions on the Brexit divorce deal between the United Kingdom and European Union despite May saying otherwise in UK Parliament a few moments ago.

“The EU will not renegotiate the withdrawal agreement endorsed by British Prime Minister Theresa May,” Merkel reiterated on Wednesday in an address to German Parliament. 

“We have no intention of renegotiating the agreement.”  

Merkel also warned: “We still believe in an orderly exit from the EU by the UK. We are working hard to facilitate an orderly Brexit. But we are also preparing in the event it becomes disorderly.”

May met the German leader in Berlin on Tuesday as she embarked on a desperate mission to win concessions from European leaders to make the the deal more palatable to the UK Parliament. German lawmakers briefed by Merkel after the meeting said there was no question of reopening the legal text.

European Council President Donald Tusk has said his “intention is that we will listen to the UK Prime Minister’s assessment, and later, we will meet at 27 to discuss the matter and adopt relevant conclusions.” 

Tusk, in his letter on the eve of the heads of government summit in Brussels, continued by saying that “as time is running out, we will also discuss the state of preparations for a no-deal scenario.”

Ahead of Wednesday evening’s vote of no-confidence over Theresa May’s premiership of the Conservative Party, here’s a handy breakdown of how a leadership battle could unfold:

The Scottish National Party’s leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, certainly didn’t mince his words when addressing the chamber. Blackford said Theresa May had promised strong and stable and a vote on the Brexit deal – both of which she failed to honor. He asked if May had any intention of bringing forward the so-called “meaningful vote” on her negotiated Brexit deal with the European Union to next week.

May said talks with EU leaders were ongoing and that the date of the deferred vote would be announced in due course.

Blackford then unleashed a blistering response:

Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn called again for the British Prime Minister to rule out a Brexit without a deal, which she has “failed to do.”

May fired back: “Well, we all know one group of people that don’t want to find a constructive solution – it’s the Labour Party front bench. And that’s what we see on the other side of the chamber – no plan, no clue, no Brexit.”

Corbyn swiftly replied that “the time for dithering and delay is over.”

Only a fool would bet on the outcome of tonight’s vote, but it’s fair to say it’s far more complicated than a win-lose for Theresa May. 

In the UK, politics is more than anything about numbers. 

Numbers are what the Prime Minister – and anyone that might follow – needs to get their Brexit vision through Parliament. At the moment, it’s clear that May doesn’t have these numbers – hence pulling the vote on Monday. 

In order for May to feel secure this time tomorrow, she will need to win tonight’s vote by a comfortable margin. Should she fail to convincingly see off her own rebels, the obligation to back her in Parliament will seem less pressing for those who have remained loyal to date. 

A bad defeat among her own MPs could see the opposition Labour Party smell blood and trigger a motion of no confidence in the government – and who knows where that leads…

British PM Theresa May during PMQs on Wednesday lunchtime.

It’s kicking off quickly this lunchtime in the UK House of Commons. The opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn immediately launches a scathing attack on May and her last-minute whistle-stop tour to Europe after abruptly canceling Tuesday’s crucial vote on her Brexit deal.

Entering the chamber to cheers, Theresa May is now addressing Parliament during her weekly obligation of Prime Minister’s Questions.

May ruled out a general election in her first remarks:

UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is pleading with members of the Conservative Party to back British Prime Minister Theresa May in Wednesday’s vote over her leadership.

Hunt’s pleas come as MPs continue to weigh the pros and cons of May’s premiership. Desmond Swayne, Conservative MP for New Forest West, expressed his frustration over the swirling questions of which way party members will vote in a Twitter post on Wednesday morning.

British PM Theresa May will face opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn for the first since the leadership challenge was announced at Prime Minister’s Questions at noon (7 a.m. ET).

Here’s a rundown of Wednesday’s schedule:

Tonight’s vote on Theresa May’s fate is the result of a “toddler’s tantrum” by rebellious Conservative MPs, a fellow Conservative backbencher has said.

“This is bad behavior from some of our colleagues,” Simon Hoare told CNN’s Max Foster. “It’s not on and it’s got to stop.”

“Some of my colleagues, they’ve either been at the eggnog or they’re getting a little bit overexcited during the Christmas period,” he adds.

 “I think she will win and win very comfortably today,” Hoare predicts. He adds that there would be the “most delicious irony” if May won with a 52-48% margin, which would mirror the result in the EU referendum in 2016. “With those majorities, we all have to accept results, don’t we?” he says.

Cliches exist for a reason, and this morning in London, it feels as though we are living through the calm before the storm. 

At the moments of highest drama, Westminster has a habit of going quiet. It’s hard to know how tonight’s vote will go and today is going to be fast-moving. 

No MP I have spoken to will confidently say how they predict the vote among their own tonight will go. 

While this might not seem immediately useful, it does reveal the extent to which the parliamentary members of the UK’s governing Conservative Party simply do not trust one another.

There are at least five factions within the party – many on the same side of the Brexit debate – that are inexplicably distrustful of one another. Whatever happens tonight, it is unlikely that the fate of the Prime Minister will heal these wounds. 

Usually markets don’t like uncertainty so with the no-confidence vote against British Prime Minister Theresa May looming, you’d think that fear would be reflected in markets on Wednesday morning.

“It went down a little bit when this announcement was made,” CNN’s Samuel Burke reported. “But now we’re looking at it and you’ll see that one pound is worth a dollar twenty five – that’s actually up a little bit.

Burke said currency traders have indicated that given only 15 % of Conservative MPs have called for this vote, they don’t see a leadership change coming.

“They are thinking that Theresa May is going to win and that could give her one year of leadership … markets like consistency, this is somebody that they know,” Burke said.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May could face a secret mutiny from her own cabinet in Wednesday night’s vote, a Conservative rebel has told CNN’s Max Foster.

“We’ve heard Cabinet ministers coming out today to support Theresa May, but it’s a secret ballot – and I know for a fact that not all of them will vote for her,” Laurence Robertson said. “There will be a lot more people voting against than were prepared to put in letters (of no confidence),” he predicted.

Robertson was one of the earliest Conservative MPs to send in a letter of no-confidence, doing so back in the summer after May announced her so-called Chequers plan for leaving the European Union.

“I came to the conclusion then that Theresa May was taking us in the wrong direction,” he said. Today’s vote “has come about because I’m afraid Theresa May has gone against the things she’s said.”

Former UK Prime Minister David Cameron has joined the chorus of support for Theresa May, suggesting that Conservative MPs should back her because she offers continuity and stability to the Brexit process at this juncture.

Cameron served as the country’s prime minister between 2010 and 2016. In April, he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that he didn’t regret calling a referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union – but wishes the result had gone the other way.

“I made a promise to the British people – I kept that promise,” he said.

Cameron’s fateful decision to call the referendum led to his political downfall and left his successor, Theresa May, with a diplomatic tangle that has continued to plague her government. 

The embattled Prime Minister is being thrown a few lifelines from loyal cabinet members and backbenchers this morning, as MPs announce their intention to support her in tonight’s vote.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid, tipped as one of the frontrunners to succeed May as the next Conservative leader, has said the vote is “self-indulgent and wrong.”

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt was also quick to get behind the Prime Minister, saying her role is the “most difficult job imaginable.”

And Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary and Brexiteer who has been supportive of May’s deal with the EU, confirmed he won’t be turning his back on the Prime Minister tonight.

It’s worth remembering, though, that tonight’s vote will be a secret ballot – so we won’t know for sure how individual MPs vote.

May’s last-minute decision to pull the crucial vote on her Brexit deal made the no confidence vote all but inevitable, according to a Conservative rebel MP.

“Pulling the vote was undermining the whole fabric of public trust,” Bill Cash told CNN’s Max Foster.

Cash was one of the first Tories to send in a letter of no confidence last month, after May announced her deal with the European Union. That initial attempt to force a confidence vote failed, but more MPs have backed the call since May’s U-turn yesterday.

“The reality is that many, many hundreds of MPs were going in to debate. We were going to have a vote on that,” Cash says. “That sort of thing demonstrates the degree of uncertainty that she has created in the way she’s gone about all of this.”

But Cash refused to make a prediction on the outcome of tonight’s vote. “I just don’t know - the short answer is that it would be very foolish on either side” to speculate, he says.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s remarks confirming she would contest the leadership challenge triggered on Wednesday.

Conservative MP and Chair of the European Research Group Jacob Rees-Mogg on November 16.

Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, chair of the pro-Brexit European Research Group, has called for the PM to step down in a tweet shortly after the vote of no-confidence was triggered.

A month ago, Rees-Mogg publicly revealed he sent one of the 48 letters expressing concern over May’s leadership.

Wednesday’s scheduled Cabinet meeting has been cancelled, Downing Street has announced amid a leadership challenge to UK Prime Minister Theresa May.

Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 committee, told CNN the announcement on the outcome of Wednesday’s vote of no-confidence in British PM Theresa May could come as early as an hour after the vote.

“We’ll count as soon as we possibly can after (vote ends at 8 p.m.) and we will make an announcement within an hour – so I hope before 9 o’clock,” he told CNN’s Max Foster.

Brady said he had spoken to the embattled leader upon her return from whistle-stop visits to Berlin and Brussels yesterday during which she expressed a desire to resolve any leadership issues resolved quickly.

Should May lose the vote, he also suggested a replacement could be found quickly.

“I ran the process in 2016,” he says. “It took no more than 10 days – it might even be possible to conduct a process of that sort more quickly.” But he adds: “If there are two candidates, and that is the expectation – there will be a postal ballot and that inevitably takes longer.”

He also explained the announcement was made early Wednesday to avoid unsettling the markets.

“We thought that when we were making a serious announcement that has important consequences, we thought that we ought to make the announcement before the markets open,” he said.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove and Secretary for the Department for Work and Pensions Amber Rudd leave Number 10 Downing Street following a meeting of cabinet ministers on December 06, 2018 in London, England. 

Several potential challengers to Theresa May pledged Wednesday morning to back her in the leadership contest coming later Wednesday, including Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Environment Secretary Michael Gove and International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt. 

Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has so far been conspicuously – and unusually – silent.

Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee talks to the media in Westminster on Wednesday.

Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 committee – a group that represents the interests of Conservative lawmakers – told Theresa May last night that he had received enough letters from Conservative Party MPs to force her to face a leadership vote, he said on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme Wednesday morning.

He refused to say how many letters he had received.

He phoned her to deliver the news, he said. He refused to say how she had reacted, other than to say that she was eager for the process to be completed as quickly as possible. Brady specified that he wanted the announcement of the challenge made before markets opened. 

She will address Conservative lawmakers at 5:00 p.m. GMT (noon ET) in a committee room at Parliament, followed by voting between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. GMT (1 p.m. and 3 p.m.).

May needs a simple majority of Conservative MPs to survive the vote. There are 315 Conservative MPs, so a majority is 158.

Brady refused to be drawn on what May should do if she survives the vote, but only narrowly.

If she wins, she cannot be challenged for a year, under party rules.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has confirmed she will fight on despite facing a vote of no confidence from her own Members of Parliament on Wednesday. 

A defiant May took to the podium outside Downing House and said:

May added that now was not the time for a leadership battle, adding that one would “put our country’s future at risk and create uncertainty when we can least afford it.”

“The new leader wouldn’t have time to renegotiate a withdrawal agreement and get the legislation through parliament by the 29th of March, so one of their first acts would have to be extending or rescinding Article 50, delaying or even stopping Brexit when people want us to get on with it,” she said.