Tory MPs line up to criticise Theresa May over Jeremy Corbyn Brexit talks
3 min read
Furious Conservative MPs rounded on Theresa May in the House of Commons today over her bid to break the Brexit deadlock by holding talks with Jeremy Corbyn.
Eurosceptic Tories reacted with anger after Mrs May issued a plea for “national unity” and said a softer Brexit was now on the cards to try and get her battered EU deal through.
The Prime Minister's Questions confrontation came after Mrs May wrote a letter to every Conservative MP blaming hardliners on her own side and the DUP for pushing her to seek the Labour leader's help to deliver Brexit.
Tory MP Lee Rowley pointed out that Mrs May had last week branded the Labour leader “the biggest threat to our standing in the world” and asked: “In her judgement what now qualifies him for involvement in Brexit?”
His colleague Caroline Johnson - who has previously backed Theresa May’s deal - demanded to know: “If it comes to the point when we have to balance the risk of a no-deal Brexit vs the risk of letting down the country and ushering in a Marxist, anti-semite led government, what does she think at that point is the lowest risk?”
Defence Committee chair Julian Lewis meanwhile asked why a Prime Minister who had “repeatedly told us that no-deal is better than a bad deal” was now seeking to block “a WTO Brexit”.
Brexiteer David Jones asked Mrs May whether she still believed the Labour leader was “not fit to govern”, while Andrew Rosindell took to Twitter to accuse Mrs May of “forming a government of national unity with a Marxist”.
Hitting back, the Prime Minister - who spent the first chunk of the session sparring with Mr Corbyn over the Government’s record - insisted that she still did “not think the Labour party should be in government”.
And she said the pair continued to have “different opinions on a number of issues” - including on national security.
“When we suffered a chemical weapons attack on the streets of Salisbury, it was me as Prime Minister, this government that stood up against the perpetrators of that attack,” she said.
“[Mr Corbyn] said he’d prefer to believe Vladimir Putin than our own security agencies. That is not the place of somebody that should be prime minister.”
But she warned her party: “I want to ensure that we deliver Brexit, I want to ensure that we do it in an orderly way, without fighting European elections.
“But to do that we need to find a way of this House agreeing the Withdrawal Agreement and agreeing the way forward.
“And it is on that basis that I have been sitting down with members across the House and will continue to do so in order to ensure that we can find a way forward that this House can support.”
'BREAK THE LOGJAM'
Talks will begin on Wednesday afternoon, with the Labour leader expected to demand that the PM sign up to his plans for a permanent customs union with the EU.
In her letter to Tory MPs, Mrs May said: "The question is how can we get Parliament to ratify the deal? The Government would have preferred to do so based on Conservative and DUP votes.
"But, having three times, it is clear that is unlikely to happen. So yesterday we agreed to take action to break the logjam. I offered to sit down with the leader of the opposition to try to agree a plan to ensure that we leave the European Union and that we do so with a deal."
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