Theresa May refuses to apologise to Tory party for snap election disaster
3 min read
Theresa May has refused to apologise to the Conservative Party for calling the snap election which saw her lose her Commons majority.
The Prime Minister has come in for repeated criticism for the ill-fated decision to go to the country on 8 June.
During a disastrous campaign, the Conservatives lost their double-digit lead over Labour and ended up needing to strike a deal with the DUP to cling on to power.
Pressure is mounting on Mrs May to show her party that she has learned the lessons of the election, and has a plan to turn around their fortunes.
But when asked on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show whether she would apologise for the election result, the Prime Minister repeatedly ducked the question.
She would only say: "I called the election, I led the campaign, I take my responsibility and I'm sorry that some very good members of parliament lost their seats and some very good people who were candidates did not gain those seats."
She added: "I've spoken to my members of parliament, I'll be speaking later today to the party activists. Throughout my entire life I have worked for the Conservative Party and I know people who went out during that election who worked really hard and I'm sorry the result wasn't the one that all of us wanted.
"If you look at it, we got 2.3 million more votes, we got our highest vote share for over 30 year, we took seats we didn't think we were going to take, we got more members of parliament in Scotland and yet we didn't get that majority.
"So what I'll be saying to people is 'yes, we've got to look at what happened during that election, we've got to listen to voters and the messages that they were giving us'."
However, First Secretary of State Damian Green, who is effectively Deputy Prime Minister, told Peston on Sunday that Mrs May will apologise to activists this afternoon.
Elsewhere in the wide-ranging interview, Mrs May confirmed plans to freeze tuition fees and increase the threshold at which the charges are repaid, plus plans to pump a further £10bn into the Government's Help To Buy scheme.
She also insisted the Cabinet was "united in the mission of this government", despite an ongoing briefing war between those who support a hard Brexit and others, including Chancellor Philip Hammond, who believe the UK should retain as close as possible a relationship with the EU.
Mrs May also insisted that Boris Johnson is "absolutely behind" her Brexit strategy, despite him setting out his "red lines" on how the negotiations should be conducted.
However, when asked if the Foresign Secretary was "unsackable", she said: "We have a government that is determined to build a country that works for everyone, and you know what, you talk about Boris's job, you talk about my job, I think the people watching this programme are actually interested in what we're doing for their job, and their futures and their children's futures."
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