Theresa May declares Brexit 'finish line is in sight' as she fights for her political life
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- 22 Oct 2021
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Theresa May today claims the Brexit "finish line is in sight" as she mounts a battle for her political life.
The Prime Minister will claim her deal is "95% settled" in a Commons address to MPs after weekend-long talk of toppling her.
Vicious briefings including violent language emerged over the weekend after the PM said she was poised to extend the Brexit 'transition period' and put no end date on her Northern Ireland 'backstop'.
The PM led two terse Cabinet conference calls over the weekend.
She was reportedly confronted by ministers in one 90-minute chat, where Sajid Javid said there must be a time limit on the backstop and Esther McVey said she was "devastated".
Theresa May is battling to save her premiership following last week’s EU summit, at which she agreed to consider delaying Brexit in a bid to unlock stalled talks.
The Prime Minister is considering extending the "transition period" for Brexit beyond December 2020.
She is also refusing to set an end date for her "backstop" plan that would temporarily keep EU customs rules across the whole of the UK, avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland.
Both plans have enraged Brexiteers.
Cabinet minister Chris Grayling admitted: “We’re not a set of clones, we don’t always agree on absolutely everything.”
Around 40 Tory MPs are threatening to pass amendments to the Northern Ireland Bill on Wednesday that would throw a spanner in the works.
A source suggester the amendments would force any plans for a backstop to have the approval of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Downing Street has commissioned urgent legal advice to calculate whether the PM can afford to bow to the threat, the Times reports.
But Mrs May puts on a brave face today as she launches a fightback - saying Brexit talks are “not about me or my personal fortunes - they’re about the national interest."
In a newspaper article she says: "Turn on the TV most days and you’ll find someone speculating about what the Brexit talks mean for Theresa May .
"Has it been a good day or a bad day for me? Am I up or down?
"‘How are YOU doing Prime Minister?’ one journalist asked me recently....
"None of this is about me. It’s all about you.”
And in an address to Parliament she will say: "95% of the Withdrawal Agreement and its protocols are now settled.”
Cabinet minister Mr Grayling - a staunch Brexiteer - re-stated he was only willing to accept a "short bridge" backstop if Brexit talks fail.
"I'm perfectly happy to contemplate a short bridge between the end of the implementation period and the start of the future economic partnership if it is necessary," he told the BBC.
"I don't think it needs to be necessary, I don't want it to be necessary, because what it can't do, it absolutely can't do, is trap us in limbo indefinitely, and Cabinet is completely united about that."
Today Mrs May will tell MPs: "The original backstop proposal from the EU was one we could not accept, as it would mean creating a customs border down the Irish Sea and breaking up the integrity of the UK.
"I do not believe that any UK Prime Minister could ever accept this.
"And I certainly will not."
Anonymous MPs claimed over the weekend that their leader was "in the killing zone" and should "bring her own noose" to a meeting with angry Brexiteers this Wednesday.
But the briefings backfired as supportive Tories demanded police investigate the threats.
Tory MP Paul Masterson fumed: "If I was told to 'bring my own noose' to my next surgery, that I'd be 'knived', or 'assassinated', my staff would report it to the police.
"I don't really see why comments made by snivelling cowards on the back benches towards the Prime Minister should be treated differently."
Yvette Cooper, chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, urged Tory whips to unmask MPs behind the "vile and dehumanising language".
The former minister warned the words were "normalising violence in public debate" barely a year after Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered.
It comes after London played host to a vast march against Brexit calling for a second referendum - a 'People's Vote'.
Organisers claim 700,000 people attended, making Saturday's march the biggest in the UK since protests against the Iraq War.
Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry defended her decision, along with the rest of Labour's front bench, not to attend the march.
She told the BBC she had instead been in Crawley in West Sussex, "where 58% of the population voted to leave", talking to activists and businesses.
She said this morning: "I want to have a people's vote, but I want to have a big and proper people's vote, which is a general election.
"If a government can't govern, there should be another government.
"Although Theresa May says today she has got 95% of the agreement done with the European Union, I don't know if that's really the right number.
"But I can tell you what - the bit she has got to agree yet is extremely difficult."
Labour MP Owen Smith of the anti-Brexit Best For Britain group said: "This claim that Brexit is 95% done is clearly utter nonsense."
