Theresa May must beware, a coup could be just around the corner

Boris Johnson hasn’t appeared in public since hours before his resignation, fuelling speculation of a leadership challenge.

Boris Johnson is holed away with his advisers, fuelling speculation of a leadership challenge. Picture: AFP.

It looked by mid-morning Monday (local time) as though Theresa May could contain the fallout from losing her Brexit secretary, David Davis.

The departure this morning (AEST) of her foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, pushed the crisis into new territory. He quit just 30 minutes before the Prime Minister was due to make a statement to parliament about her Brexit blueprint agreed at Chequers on Friday.

Speculation has continued to mount that Mr Johnson is mulling a leadership challenge. He has not appeared in public since holing up with his advisers on Monday morning, missing a Cobra meeting and the Western Balkans summit that he was scheduled to be chairing.

Key figures from Conservative campaign headquarters known to be sympathetic to Mr Johnson left the building before noon and were believed to be with him, further fuelling rumours that he is on manoeuvres.

While the former foreign secretary boasts appeal and a high profile in the wider party, the degree of parliamentary support he could command is far less solid.

Behind closed doors Tory MPs criticised him, with one senior parliamentarian declaring: “At last! He didn’t go over Zaghari-Ratcliffe or Heathrow or Libyan corpses on beaches or any number of other issues. He finally goes over looking bad when DD quits.”

I am proud to have served as Foreign Secretary. It is with sadness that I step down: here is my letter explaining why. pic.twitter.com/NZXzUZCjdF

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) July 9, 2018

Others praised him, however. Ross Thomson, a young Tory Brexiteer who won a Scottish seat last year, tweeted: “I’m proud of both @DavidDavisMP and @BorisJohnson for standing by their principles. The decisions we take now will shape Britain’s relationship with the EU and the rest of the world for a generation. It’s imperative we do #Brexit right no half measures! #ChequersPlan.”

A YouGov survey released today, conducted before Mr Davis’s resignation, revealed that Mr Johnson was considered by 80 per cent of party members to be likeable, beating his rival leadership candidates. Meanwhile 66 per cent of members said they believed that he shared their political outlook, a score that also put him in first position for the characteristic. He lost out to rival contenders on “strong leader”, “up to the job” and “competent”.

The seriousness of the crisis engulfing Mrs May has forced Downing Street to declare that she would fight a no-confidence motion if one were brought forward. It is the first time that No 10 has been compelled to publicly concede this is a possibility.

Theresa May says she will fight a no-confidence motion if one is brought forward. Picture: Getty Images.

This is the first time two cabinet ministers have quit within 24 hours of each other — outside cabinet reshuffles — since 1979, according to the BBC analysis and research team.

Privately, ministers and MPs are scrambling to make sense of what was happening, with one minister describing the government as “more like Wacky Races”.

Some Tories predicted the collapse of Mrs May’s administration, while others insisted that her survival depended on her abandoning her “third way” on customs. Another faction was confident that Downing Street could hold the line.

If there is a lesson from past Tory leadership coups, it is that they tend to escalate quickly. Edifices that once looked solid can swiftly collapse to dust. Margaret Thatcher left office just 14 days after she was challenged by Michael Heseltine in November 1990.

In opposition Iain Duncan Smith attempted to face down speculation mounting about his future as party leader. In October 2003 he dared his critics to get behind him or gather enough support to trigger a no-confidence motion. Two days later they announced their official challenge.

MPs crammed into the chamber to hear the prime minister speak at 3.30pm on Monday. The mood was glum on Conservative benches, though she projected an air of confidence.

Bill Cash, an arch-Eurosceptic, asked how she could “reconcile the Chequers statement with the recent repeal of the 1972 Act under the [EU] Withdrawal Act and also including the European Court of Justice and with democratic self-government in this country?”

John Redwood, another arch-Eurosceptic, urged Mrs May to “clear away the ambiguities or the contradictions” in the Chequers statement that left the door open to handing powers to the European Court of Justice, paying money to Brussels and accepting EU migration policy. She rejected the assertions in his question.

Meanwhile Anna Soubry, a Remain supporter, congratulated Mrs May for her leadership, noting that she had “listened to business” in coming forward with a compromise on customs on goods, but questioning the arrangements proposed for services.

One cabinet minister said that the loss of Mr Davis and Mr Johnson was inevitable. “At some point or other the reality that you cannot simultaneously have an economically successful Brexit that keeps the union together and brings us control and flexibility untrammelled by Johnny Foreigner — you cannot have all of that at the same time.

“Difficult choices have to be made and we are not living in a fantasy world. Some of the people who put us into this position now want to run away from it.”

Dismissing the idea of a leadership election as “the most extraordinarily self-indulgent thing to do”, the cabinet minister urged Mrs May to “plough on, fight on, show leadership” and face down the noisy threats from her critics within the Tory party.

One hard line Eurosceptic in the Tory backbench group the European Research Group predicted: “This is defenestration by cabinet.”

Another source on the Tory right said: “They’ll keep going, one by one, until she either junks Chequers or goes. As many as it takes/we run out. But she’ll not survive the third. And the third will become PM. Perhaps our third female PM.”

One minister speculated that the prime minister may herself trigger a vote of confidence and predicted that she would “win it by miles”.

The Times