May battling to prevent Tory defections, Cabinet revolt over Brexit
By Frank Prenesti
Date: Thursday 21 Feb 2019
(Sharecast News) - Prime Minister Theresa May was battling to head off more defections and a potential Cabinet revolt over her Brexit deal on Thursday as she met pro-European MPs.
May met with former Cabinet minister Justine Greening and ex justice minister Phillip Lee in Downing Street in an attempt to persuade them to stay in the Conservative Party.
Eight Labour MPs quit earlier in the week to form the Independent Group and were joined on Wednesday by three Tories, shaking the leaderships of both parties.
The prime minister also met with Justice Secretary David Gauke and and Business Secretary Greg Clark, both of whom warned her about opposition to a no-deal Brexit scenario.
Former education secretary Greening said she had considered joining the Independent Group.
"It is something that I have considered, but I have reached a different conclusion for the moment," she told the BBC.
"I don't think I would be able to stay part of a party that was simply a Brexit party that had crashed us out of the European Union."
Lee, who chairs the Right to Vote group, said he was concerned that hardline Tory Brexiteers had gained too much access to May.
May is desperate to get changes agrees on her withdrawal deal with the EU that will satisfy the Brexit ultras in her party and the equally dogmatic Democratic Unionist Party, enabling parliament to approve it. Their central demand is the removal of the Irish backstop from the text of the agreement because it could indefinitely bind the UK into a customs union.
Earlier on Thursday Chancellor Philip Hammond said MPs could be given a vote on a revised Brexit deal as soon as next week, although European Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker said he was pessimistic about reaching agreement.
Hammond told the BBC another "meaningful vote" could take place before the end of February if progress is made in talks with the EU this week.
Prime Minister Theresa May has promised to give MPs some form of Brexit vote by February 27. Downing Street believes this could happen if ongoing talks with Brussels make progress.
"There may be an opportunity to bring a vote back to the House of Commons but that will depend on progress that is made over the next few days. These discussions are ongoing," said.
"If we do not have a meaningful vote next week there will be another amendable motion tabled which will allow the House of Commons to once again debate how it wants to go forward."
"We have got frankly a problem in the House of Commons. The House of Commons knows what it is against - it is absolutely against a no-deal exit but it has struggled to come up with a clear message to the government about what it, as a House of Commons, wants as a way forward to avoid that outcome."
However, in Brussels, Juncker said he could no rule out the prospect of a no-deal Brexit while chief negotiator Michel Barnier appeared to be frustrated at what he claimed, again, what was a lack of clarity from May.
"If a no-deal would happen - and I can't exclude this - this would have terrible economic and social consequences, both in Britain and on the continent, and so my efforts orient in a way that the worst can be avoided," Juncker told the European Economic and Social Committee.
"But I am not very optimistic when it comes to this issue."
"We are trying to deliver our best efforts in order to have this Brexit being organised in a proper, civilised, well-thought-out way. But we are not there, because in the British parliament there is, every time they are voting, a majority against something, there is never a majority in favour of something."
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