Croydon’s lone Conservative MP will not be among those who sends a letter calling for a no confidence vote in the Prime Minister, Inside Croydon can reveal.
Croydon South MP Chris Philp is backing the beleaguered Theresa May over Brexit
Theresa Mayhem’s Tory Government has been in crisis this week, since the terms of the Brexit withdrawal agreement were published. After nearly two years of negotiations, the document is a masterpiece of political fudgery, offering a deal which is unacceptable to Leavers and Remainers alike.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, described the agreement as “a false choice… between her botched deal and no deal”.
Corbyn told Parliament, “The PM is offering a choice between the worst of all worlds and a catastrophic series of consequences. Neither of these options is acceptable.”
May’s Tory backbenchers were quick to turn on the Prime Minister. “You are not delivering the Brexit people voted for and today you will lose the support of many Conservative MPs and millions of voters across the country,” warned arch-Leaver MP Peter Bone.
Even Dominic Raab, who as Brexit Secretary was supposed to have negotiated the thing, found he could not support it and resigned from May’s Cabinet.
There is a strong suggestion that this whole balls-up is a deal Made in Croydon.
On Tuesday night, when Cabinet ministers were summoned to Downing Street, not all of them got a one-on-one briefing from May. Some had the delight of being briefed by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, the former Croydon councillor and MP.
Mayhem’s Brexit deal was Made in Croydon, thanks to her chief of staff gaffe-prone Gavin Barwell
If May loses her job, it could prompt a Brexit unemployment surge in Croydon, with not only Gaffe-prone Gav queuing up at the Job Centre at Fisher’s Folly.
The Croydon cronies who Barwell recruited after May hired him would also likely all be seeking new jobs: Tory councillors Mario Creatura and Jason Cummings, plus former BME Forum head, Nero Ughwujabo. Sara Bashford, another former Barwell lackey, might even be given her P45 from the cushy Cabinet Office job she somehow landed shortly after her ex-boss arrived in Downing Street.
Much depends on the political manoeuvring and leadership bids taking place over the next few days.
The myriad options now confronting May and her “top team” in No10 Downing Street are enough to provide plot twists for a whole series of Game of Thrones. Westeros is not the only place to have a Battle of the Bastards…
The Ulster fundamentalists in the DUP, whose loyalty to the Tories had been bought with £1billion of tax-payers’ money, say that they will vote against the agreement. Labour says that the agreement fails to meet their six conditions. And many Tory backbenchers, like Bone, have also said that they will vote down the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
Some Conservative MPs, so dissatisfied with the Prime Minister’s handling of the Brexit agreement, have written to the chair of the 1922 Committee, the Tory backbenchers’ group, to call for a vote of no confidence in their party leader. Jacob Rees-Mogg has even publicly encouraged the whole of his EU-sceptic band of Tory MPs to do just that.
Jacob Rees-Mogg: called for the Prime Minister to be challenged
If 48 Tory MPs submit such a letter, a leadership contest would be triggered.
But Chris Philp, the MP for Croydon South, won’t be one of those seeking to oust May and her Croydon clique from Downing Street.
“It’s important that MPs keep cool heads and ensure that they don’t make a decision on the Brexit deal until they’ve read it,” Philp said this week, as he was one of the loyalists who was wheeled out to make the case for supporting the Prime Minister.
Certainly, Philp seems most unlikely to be among those seeking to topple Theresa Mayhem.
When the possibility of a leadership challenge was raised a fortnight ago, Philp told this website: “Letters to the chairman of the 1922 Committee about leadership are private and generally MPs don’t discuss whether they have or have not sent them – but you will have seen that I have publicly supported Theresa May’s leadership during what are difficult and complicated negotiations. I will always be consistent in public and private actions.”
And Philp recently laid out his position on the Brexit agreement for Inside Croydon.
“I support Theresa May’s efforts to get an agreement which keeps trade flowing as we leave the EU, while also respecting the referendum result.
“For me, this means a number of things: we should leave the Customs Union and Single Market once we are in the final state trade deal; any backstop deal (addressing Northern Ireland border issues) which follows the implementation period but precedes the final state should have a clear end mechanism which we can control so that we cannot be kept in the back stop indefinitely against our wishes.
“Northern Ireland must be treated the same as the rest of the UK – otherwise we are dividing the Union. We cannot agree to a separate Northern Ireland customs arrangement, even during a temporary backstop period. Any backstop period involving a time-limited UK-wide Customs arrangement with the EU would be acceptable (because it is time limited in some manner and because it would treat the UK as a whole).”
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Philp obviously thinks his majority is inviolable…
Theresa May’s deal is like a surrender document imposed on a defeated enemy after a war!
* The UK will remain a ‘party’ (i.e. cough up money) for the European Development Fund. (Articles 152-154 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* The UK will be liable for future EU lending. (Article 143 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* The UK is bound by EU state aid laws until future agreement – even in the event of an agreement, this must wait four years to be valid. (Article 93 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* The UK is bound by EU rules on procurement rules – which effectively forbids us from seeking better deals elsewhere. (Articles 75 to 78 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* The UK will effectively be bound by a non-disclosure agreement swearing us to secrecy regarding any EU developments we have paid to be part. This is not mutual. The EU is not bound by such measures. (Article 74 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* The EU will continue to set rules for UK intellectual property law (Article 54 to 61 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* All EU citizens must be given permanent right of residence after five years – but what counts as residence? This will be decided by the EU, rather than UK rules. (Articles 15-16 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* The UK will be tied to EU foreign policy, “bound by the obligations stemming from the international agreements concluded by the Union” but unable to influence such decisions. (Article 124 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* The UK is shut out of all EU networks and databases for security – yet no such provision exists to shut the EU out of ours. (Article 8 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* UK must promise never to tax former EU officials based here – such as Mandelson or Kinnock – on their EU pensions, or tax any current Brussels bureaucrats on their salaries. The EU and its employees are to be immune to our tax laws. (Article 104 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* The UK agrees not to prosecute EU employees who are, or who might be deemed in future, criminals. (Article 101 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* Any powers the UK parliament might have had to mitigate EU law are officially removed. (Article 128 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* The UK will remain liable for capital projects approved by the European Investment Bank. (Article 150 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* UK will be bound by EU laws, at least during a transition period. But this ‘transition period’ can be be made to last forever. (Article 132 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* The UK will still be signed up to clauses keeping us under certain rules (like VAT and ECJ supervision) for a further eight years. Some clauses have, quite literally, a “lifetime” duration. (Article 39 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* Any disputes under the Agreement will be decided by EU law only – one of the most dangerous provisions. This cuts the UK off from International Law. (Article 168 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
* ‘Irish Border issue is a hoax’ – We already operate a different currency, tax rates, excise duties between north and south with no problem. Also ‘The Common Travel Area’ is a result of a bilateral agreement between Ireland and UK going back to 1923. It has nothing to do with EU.
* The UK will remain bound (i.e coughing up money) to the European Union Emergency Trust Fund – which deals with irregular migration (i.e. refugees) and displaced persons heading to Europe. (Article 155 of Theresa May’s Brexit deal)
I wouldn’t expect anything else from a sycophantic, career politician.
He is the only Croydon politician she hasn’t given a job to yet. We now know she is getting desperate trying to fill her Cabinet and despite his dubious past at Oxford and opaque financial dealings he must feel it is only a matter of time with all the spittle he has been licking before being given political career advancement. It does seen though even the Tories have reservations about offering our great Physicist their usual easy leg up.