1 / 2
Boris Johnson prepares UK for no-deal Brexit as he leads race to replace Theresa May
Boris Johnson has set the scene for a high-risk no-deal Brexit, as he kicked off the race to succeed Theresa May in explosive style.Just hours after a tearful Ms May bowed to pressure from her own party and announced she will stand down as Conservative leader on 7 June, the former foreign secretary declared he would take the UK out of the EU on 31 October, whether or not a withdrawal agreement has been reached with Brussels.Mr Johnson has been installed as hot favourite to take over as prime minister in July, with one member of his campaign team telling The Independent he was attracting support from MPs across the different wings of the party.Mr Johnson did not hesitate to throw himself into the fray, telling an economic conference in Switzerland: “We will leave the EU on October 31, deal or no deal. The way to get a good deal is to prepare for a no deal.”But moderate Tories warned that a new leader taking power on a no-deal platform risked splitting the party, and former attorney general Dominic Grieve said it may not survive in its current form.Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt set himself up as Mr Johnson’s heavyweight rival for No 10 by confirming he will stand, and there was a surprise declaration from 1922 Committee chair Sir Graham Brady, while hard Brexiteer Steve Baker said he was “taking soundings”.Also expected to throw their hats in the ring in the coming days were health secretary Matt Hancock, environment secretary Michael Gove and former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, adding to a swollen line-up already featuring Andrea Leadsom, Esther McVey and Rory Stewart.After months of phoney war, the contest was triggered in earnest by Ms May’s emotionally-charged statement on the steps of 10 Downing Street. Watched by her husband Philip, the prime minister’s voice broke as she set out plans to leave office before parliament breaks up for the summer in July.Struggling to hold back her tears, Ms May, who is the 35th person to quit government over Brexit in 23 months, said that after three unsuccessful attempts to pass her Brexit deal, she now accepted it was “in the interests of the country” for a new PM to take over the process.In an apparent warning to the party not to choose an intransigent no-dealer as her successor, she said the new leader would need to seek consensus and be willing to compromise to deliver a Brexit which protects jobs, security and the Union.And her voice broke as she concluded: “Our politics may be under strain, but there is so much that is good about this country. So much to be proud of. So much to be optimistic about.“I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold – the second female prime minister but certainly not the last. I do so with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.”Speaking a day after European elections in which the Conservatives are believed to have slumped to their worst performance in their history, Ms May insisted the party “can renew itself in the years ahead”.She cited progress in reducing the deficit, rising jobs figures, the introduction of an industrial strategy, housebuilding, funding for mental health, the race disparity audit, and action to tackle plastic waste as the legacy of the “decent, moderate and patriotic” government which she led.The manner of her departure was praised by those seeking to replace her, with Mr Johnson hailing her “stoical service to our country and the Conservative Party” and Mr Raab describing her as “a dedicated public servant, patriot and loyal Conservative”.But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Ms May had shown herself unable to govern and her administration had “utterly failed the country”. He challenged her successor to call an immediate general election.US president Donald Trump, whose state visit to the UK Ms May will host in the final days of her premiership, said he “feels badly” for the departing PM but her decision was “for the good of her country”.Tory grandees announced that the process to find a replacement for Ms May would begin in the week after her resignation as leader, with MPs whittling the field down in a series of votes before the final decision is made in a ballot of 125,000 party members around the country.Boris Johnson’s vow not to seek a new Brexit extension beyond the Halloween deadline set at the April European Council summit leaves the would-be leader with a perilously tight timetable to negotiate an alternative to Ms May’s rejected deal.Defence minister Tobias Ellwood voiced unease: “If the Brexit experience to date has taught us anything, it’s to avoid making promises and drawing red lines you may later regret or cannot honour.”And Mr Grieve warned that the election of a PM on a no-deal platform could cause the government to collapse. Warning against a shift to the hard Brexit right, he said: “People have to listen to one another about finding a way through this crisis or the party will not survive in its current form... Speaking personally, I believe that the party on such a foundation and base – particularly if it starts to cosy up to Farage – will find itself in huge difficulty and will not be able to win elections.”> A very dignified statement from @theresa_may. Thank you for your stoical service to our country and the Conservative Party. It is now time to follow her urgings: to come together and deliver Brexit.> > — Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) > > May 24, 2019Former Tory minister Anna Soubry, who quit the party over Brexit to join Change UK, denounced the deal-or-no-deal pledge as “careerist, self-seeking and dangerous”, and said the former London mayor was “not fit to be our prime minister”. “If we are to get the prime minister we are crying out for, it is not Boris the clown on the zip wire,” she said.Veteran Tory backbencher Sir Roger Gale said Ms May’s removal “solves absolutely nothing – the same problems exist and will continue to exist”.Sir Roger cast doubt on Mr Johnson’s following among MPs and questioned whether he would make it through to the final ballot, telling The Independent: “Even if he wins, it will be an interesting question whether or not he can form a government, because there are people I know who would not be willing to serve under a Johnson leadership. I would be surprised if there weren’t more than a dozen.”Prominent Brexiteer Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who is working on Mr Johnson’s campaign, said he was winning support from MPs from all wings who recognise him as the only candidate with the potential to bring together the party and the country.“Many colleagues who a few months ago might have been saying ‘Boris is such a Brexiteer’ are now saying he’s the one with the magic stardust that wins elections,” she told The Independent. “These people come along every so often and he is one of them.”
While the tears flowed from Theresa May today, we must remember those whose lives have been wrecked by her premiership and her inability to stand up to the far-right of her party.
Thousands of jobs are at risk at British Steel. Honda are closing a plant in Swindon and countless other people’s positions are being moved abroad because of Brexit.
She was in charge of the Home Office during Windrush. Her refusal to take our fair share of child refugees from Calais despite promises to do so also brought shame on this country.
Finally, she was a female home secretary and prime minister who presided over cuts to funding for women’s refuges. This is no record to be proud of.
Chris Key
Address supplied
May wrote her own political obituary
Theresa May does not deserve an ounce of sympathy. She has written her own political obituary herself. It has been an open secret that she was dragging this country towards the abyss and that her weeks in government were numbered. Yet, despite that she clung on power.
Sadly, she is leaving behind a country bloodied and bruised, riven with staggering levels of child poverty, homelessness and food banks, and divided on social, political and religious fault lines.
Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob
London NW2
No taxation without representation
Following on from Tom Batchelor’s piece on the large number of EU citizens who were not allowed to cast their vote in yesterday’s election, I want to point out that this frustration is not new. Since arriving in the UK in 1971 I have only been allowed to vote in local elections and in EU elections, as I chose to vote in my country of residence. I never had the vote in a parliamentary election or in the referendum in 2016.
Whatever happened to no taxation without representation?
Having made my married life in this country, studied and worked here, raised my children and paid my taxes here for 48 years, I have been very angry for many years, and am now very, very sad.
Birthe King
London N3 1TD
May accepted a poisoned chalice
Theresa May is receiving much criticism, much of it entirely justifiable.
However, in becoming prime minister after David Cameron’s departure she accepted a poisoned chalice.
I wonder whether her successor, Boris Johnson or whichever other Brexiteer, will find the poison to still be active?
Susan Alexander
Address supplied
The UK must face up to its shameful colonial past and return the Chagos Islands
Amid the furore of Brexit and the European parliamentary elections, a shameful blot on the UK’s colonial’s past was again highlighted with the UN passing a resolution demanding the UK return control of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius.
In the non-binding vote in the general assembly in New York, 116 states voted to return the islands and only six against in a major diplomatic blow to the UK. Shamefully, despite this vote, the UK has said that it will stand by an earlier commitment to hand over control of the islands to Mauritius only when they are no longer needed for defence purposes.
Mauritius was forced to give up the islands – now a British overseas territory – in 1965 in exchange for independence, which it gained in 1968.
Britain used brutal tactics to hive off the Chagos Islands from Mauritius so that they could remain colonised, leaving Britain free to do with the islands as it wanted. What Britain wanted, it turned out, was to remove the local population, amounting to some 2,000 people.
This left the territory available for the establishment of defence facilities, with the US invited in by the UK to deliver a base on the island of Diego Garcia.
At a time when the UK is looking to forge a positive impression on the world stage given the ongoing debacle that is Brexit, this situation is clearly not quite the image our leaders are trying to project just now.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh
Options on the Brexit ballot paper
The people were asked to decide. They have to be asked to reaffirm their decision. However they can only be offered two choices: no deal or Remain. Two Leave options will split Leavers and will give Remain an advantage, which would make the outcome illegitimate. If the decision is no deal then so be it, the outcome is conclusive. A parliamentary fudge will never close the issue.
Rodney Lunn
Addingham