Brexiteer plot to topple Theresa May: Insider breaks cover to disclose leadership coup | United Kingdom | New UK News

Theresa May was voted No.10 by the Tories after the EU referendum left her predecessor, David Cameron, feeling compelled to step down. She had campaigned for Remain, but said ‘Brexit means Brexit’ and triggered Article 50 in March 2017. However, her confidence seemed out of place when she called a snap election, only to weaken her own hand and end up with a suspended Parliament and a dependency on the DUP of Northern Ireland.

She was therefore faced with a vote of no confidence from members of her own party in December 2018.

Although Ms May survived, she vowed not to lead the Tories in the 2022 general election and pledged to seek a legally binding addition to the Withdrawal Agreement with the EU due to concerns about supporting the ‘North Ireland.

Ms May and her team reportedly assumed that the internal rules governing the Tories meant that she would have another safe year at the helm of the party, after emerging victorious from this leadership challenge.

However, an assistant working for the European research group, Christopher Howarth, revealed that no one had access to this alleged rulebook – and set out to obtain it in an attempt to overthrow Ms May.

He told The Critics podcast: “There was no copy anywhere… there was only reports and popular memory.”

He went to visit Tory Baron Michael Spicer at a Kensington hospital, who had one of only two copies of the rulebook in existence.

Baron Spicer told his nurse, “This young boy is going to save the country. “

Writing in the Evening Standard, reporter Robbie Smith summed up: “Armed with the rules, Haworth then helped persuade Tory MPs that a new leadership challenge was possible, paving the way for Boris Johnson to replace May.”

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In fact, another vote of no confidence was tabled the following month by then-opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, but the House of Commons rejected it by 325 votes to 306.

However, it was additional pressures within his party that really catapulted events, as Mr Smith noted.

Ms May had promised to step back behind closed doors, but continued to move the date of her final days in office as she wanted another chance to present her Brexit deal to Parliament after three rejections.

Then, in May, she met the 1922 Committee to propose a precise timetable for her exit.

The 1922 committee executive is made up of Tory heavyweights who represent Tory backbenchers, and they gave her a firm 24-hour deadline to clarify when she was going to step down – or she would be ousted from her post.

At the time, executive member Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown told the Evening Standard: “She has had almost three years to negotiate this deal.

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“Unfortunately, now is the time to hand the reins over to someone else with new ideas and the moral authority to lead the party.”

He added: “It would be infinitely better for the Prime Minister to set this timetable herself rather than face the prospect of a vote of no confidence in her, whether from her fellow parliamentarians or from the presidents. association.

There was later speculation that the 1922 committee would change its own rules to allow a vote of no confidence to take place before December 2019.

The 1922 committee returned from Parliament’s Easter recess with the intention of using the discontent of grassroots organizations and disgruntled Conservative MPs to force Ms. May out of office.

Had the base taken part in a vote of no confidence, MPs would have had the opportunity to change the 1922 Committee rules to mean that another attempt to force it out of power would have been possible.

But, in May of that year, Ms May had declared her intention to step down as calls for her resignation mounted amid protracted Brexit negotiations and the Tories’ poor local election results.

Her successor Boris Johnson replaced her on June 7 and has just entered her third year at No.10.