Surviving The Game, Prime Minister Theresa May survives no confidence vote, the result 200-117, the PM has bought time, but Eurosceptic Conservative MPs say they will keep up calls for Theresa May to quit, as a Brexiteer who favours hard Brexit, the ERG crowd need to ‘pump their brakes’, deals can be changed very easily and coups leave a bad taste in the mouth

Dear All

Yesterday saw The Prime Minister Theresa May survive a vote of no confidence by her own party, she won by a margin of 2-1.  A victory is of course a victory, 200-117 but, if you think back to the Margaret Thatcher era, you will know that winning sometimes is only a staging post on leaving.

If you thought that the vote settled matters in the Conservative Party, you would be wrong, one thing the Conservatives do well is changing leaders, usually in a rather ruthless fashion behind the scenes. I never expected Theresa May to lose the party vote, but having 117 MPs having no confidence in her is probably more than many expected.

Theresa May has bought time for leadership, a year at least, but Eurosceptic Conservatives MPs are going to keep up calls for her to quit. I saw the election of Theresa May as leader as having the task to steer Brexit through, after that task, I expected her to stand down and a new leader to come forward.

Think of it as the ‘fresh start’ concept. Under normal circumstances, you would expect matters to be settled for a while, however the fact the Eurosceptic MPs are refused to drop their demand for her to quit means the Prime Minister’s position is far from secure. Clearly, you have to wonder about the no confidence vote in the House of Commons and whether Conservative Eurosceptic MPs will use this as a vehicle to further attack her via abstaining in that vote.

If the loss of that vote is huge, then it puts tremendous pressure to bow to the notion that 2019 will be the year that the UK is plunged into another General election. To lose that no confidence vote is damaging, but the question is how far are the Eurosceptic MPs will to go in the pursuit of their goals?

 In the run-up to the vote, one of Mrs May’s supporters said they hoped the result would put “a stake through the heart” of the European Research Group, presumably if you have watched a vampire movie, sometimes missing the target just makes them even more annoyed. ERG chair Jacob Rees-Mogg said it had been a “terrible result for the Prime Minister”, and he is right, on paper, it’s a good win, politically, it’s a bad win.

Like me who mentioned the vote in the Thatcher era, this has a feeling that having won the first round, her supporters must be considering whether her time is up. 117 Conservative MPs certainly do. In terms of the government working, the vote makes no difference as all Conservatives will rally round in the interim. Jacob Rees-Mogg said Mrs May had survived only after offering to stand down before a general election. This is what I thought she would do, finish Brexit and then pass the torch on, even without all this chaos.

Post May, I would say that the EU deal will not stand the test of time, and I do think it was intended that it ever would hence the new leader mumbling.

Question is who?

Whoever is the next Conservative leader, the feeling I think must be leaning towards someone who is a Brexiteer.

Jacob Rees-Mogg said the result has made Theresa May look fatally weak, he added:

“The urgency of having a new leader is not reduced by today, it’s increased.”

I think there is a problem for the Prime Minister, but I don’t think that the pressure has increased as Jacob Rees-Mogg said, the result bought Theresa May at least a year, Labour PM Harold Wilson famously said, ‘a week is a long time in politics’, May has 52 weeks to play with. The other elephant in the room is the insurmountable problems getting her deal and related legislation through Parliament.

Personally, this is why I am in the hard Brexit camp, what is needed is breathing space and time rather than attempting to ram something through. In this case, no one was ever going to be happy, so a quick kick into the long grass isn’t such a bad option.

In attempting to explain the result Mogg said:

“About half the parliamentary party is in the pay of the Prime Minister one way or another. Out of the remaining 160 or 170, 117 voted against her.Anyone who’s on the payroll and didn’t vote for her should have resigned, and nobody’s resigned, so you’ve got to assume the payroll voted for her. This is 177 out of 160, 170. This is a terrible result for the Prime Minister.”

Mark Francois, vice chair of the ERG, said the result was “devastating”, adding:

“She lost well over half of the backbenchers. That’s an extremely difficult position for any Prime Minister to find themselves in. Most of the pundits said we’d get somewhere between 60 and 80. We’ve blown that clear out of the water. Over a third of her MPs have said they don’t have confidence in her. That is a devastating verdict.”

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said Mrs May had won “very comfortably”.

He said:

“Of course this has been a difficult day for the Conservative Party. But the reality is the Conservative Party, by a substantial margin tonight, has said we want you to carry on and do the job.”

Quite so ma’am!

Finally, this all sounds like doom and gloom, in an ideal world, there wouldn’t have been a no confidence vote in the party, but this flags up how this EU deal is perceived, not just in the Conservative Party but wider afield. People need to focus on the 29^th March 2019; the Prime Minister will want to use her extra time to show that the EU deal is working and credible. If the deal flags up too many problems, she has the option to ditch it. Brexit is still moving forward, albeit with casualties.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University