Update 1.25pm: Jacob Rees-Mogg has handed in his letter of no-confidence to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee. He said Theresa May’s Brexit deal “has turned out to be worse than anticipated and fails to meet the promises given to the nation by the Prime Minister”.
Jacob Rees-Mogg told reporters he would not run for Conservative leader.
Speaking outside Parliament, Jacob Rees-Mogg denied he was attempting a “coup” against Mrs May. He said a coup involved using “illegitimate procedures” to remove someone from office, while he was making use of Conservative Party rules in an “entirely constitutional” way.
Mr Rees-Mogg said he was not putting himself forward as an alternative leader of the Tories. “I am not offering my name as leader,” he said. He added:
“This is nothing to do with the ambition of Brexiteers. It is everything to do with the ambition of Brexit for this country.” Discussing Mrs May’s plan, he said: “This is not Brexit. It is a failure of Government policy. It needs to be rejected.”
Mr Rees-Mogg declined to name his preferred candidate for leader. But he listed Boris Johnson, David Davis, Dominic Raab, Esther McVey and Penny Mordaunt as potential candidates to succeed Mrs May.
Mr Rees-Mogg said that Mrs May’s plan “is not Brexit” and “does not meet what we promised our voters”.
Speaking outside Parliament, he denied there was a coup against Mrs May, saying:
“A coup is when you use illegitimate procedures to try and overturn somebody who is in office, this is working through the procedures of the Conservative Party.
“It is therefore entirely constitutional and… coup is the wrong word.”
He added:
“What we need is a leader who will say to the EU ‘it is impossible to divide up the UK, it is impossible to agree to a situation where we have a perpetual customs union, it’s impossible to pay £39 billion of taxpayers money for a few promises which was meant to be £39 billion for an implementation of a deal, and it is impossible for us to allow the continuing jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice’.
“The problem is the negotiations have given away on all the key points.”
Mr Rees-Mogg said that he believed the necessary 48 letters to trigger a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister would be submitted, but declined to put a timeframe on the process. If Mrs May was rejected by MPs, a vote to choose her successor could be conducted in “not months but weeks”, he said.
Asked why he was defying calls for party unity, he said: “People always call for unity when the policy they are following is wrong. It is a standard pattern of Conservatives when they note that failure is in the air.”
He said that Dominic Raab should not be blamed for the deal negotiated with Brussels, as it was clear that the process was driven by Downing Street. There was no point appointing a new Brexit Secretary, he said.
Asked about possible successors, Mr Rees-Mogg named Boris Johnson, David Davis, Dominic Raab and Esther McVey – who all quit the Government over Brexit – and Penny Mordaunt who remains International Development Secretary.
“You have streams of talent within the Conservative Party who would be very capable of leading a proper Brexit,” he said. He added:
“One of the problems was having a Remainer (as leader).
“I recognise that compromises will need to be made but the difficulty with having a Remainer is that people feel the compromises are made in a Remain direction rather than a Leave direction.”
Chief Whip Julian Smith has said the Prime Minister would not abandon the withdrawal agreement in the face of widespread opposition among MPs. Leaving Downing Street, he told reporters: “The Prime Minister is moving things on in the best interests of the country.
“The Prime Minister will not be bullied and will not change course.” Mr Rees-Mogg said:
“The key is, if 48 letters go in it shows there are 48 people who will not vote for this deal. “That in itself is a pretty powerful statement.”
He stressed that the European Research Group did not have a collective position on Mrs May’s premiership.
Asked what his message to the Prime Minister was, he said: “The Prime Minister said at the 1922 Committee after the election that she would serve as long as the Conservative Party wanted her to serve.
“I think there are many people in the Conservative Party, not just in Parliament but in the country at large, who feel that her service now should come to an end.
“She is a very dutiful person, she has served the country to the best of her ability but she has let us down in this deal.
“It has not delivered on what she said she would do. That is the key thing – it is trust that is at the heart of it. She didn’t do what she said she would.”
Asked if Mrs May had lied, he said “lied is a very harsh word”.
Steve Baker, a fellow European Research Group member who stood next to Mr Rees-Mogg as he gave his statement, tweeted a picture of his letter of no confidence in Theresa May, sent last month to the chairman of the 1922 Committee.
He tweeted: “My letter to Sir Graham Brady of 22 October, when the Prime Minister’s article in The Sun persuaded me we could not separate the person from the policy. Sadly, the situation has only worsened in the intervening period.”
Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan said Mr Rees-Mogg’s intervention was “deeply destructive” for the Government and for the Conservative Party. “If this Government is undermined further, we could destroy the Government, we could significantly damage and even destroy the Conservative Party,” he told the BBC.
“This could lead us to being almost ungovernable for a bit.”
Mr Rees-Mogg’s full letter says:
“A few weeks ago, in a conversation with the Chief Whip I expressed my concern that the Prime Minister, Mrs Theresa May, was losing the confidence of Conservative Members of Parliament and that it would be in the interest of the Party and the country if she were to stand aside.
“I have wanted to avoid the disagreeable nature of a formal Vote of No Confidence with all the ill will that this risks engendering.
“Regrettably, the draft Withdrawal Agreement presented to Parliament today has turned out to be worse than anticipated and fails to meet the promises given to the nation by the Prime Minister, either on her own account or on behalf of us all in the Conservative Party Manifesto.
“That the Conservative and Unionist Party is proposing a Protocol which would create a different regulatory environment for an integral part of our country stands in contradistinction to our long-held principles.
“It is in opposition to the Prime Minister’s clear statements that this was something that no Prime Minister would ever do and raises questions in relation to Scotland that are open to exploitation by the Scottish National Party.
“The 2017 Election Manifesto said that the United Kingdom would leave the Customs Union.
“It did not qualify this statement by saying that we could stay in it via a backstop while Annex 2, Article 3 explicitly says that we would have no authority to set our own tariffs.
“It is also harder to leave this backstop than it is to leave the EU, there is no provision equivalent to Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.
“The Prime Minister also promised an implementation period which was the reason for paying £39 billion.
“As was made clear by a House of Lords report in March 2017 there is no legal obligation to pay anything. This has now become an extended period of negotiation which is a different matter.
“The situation as regards the European Court of Justice appears to have wandered from the clear statement that we are taking back control of our laws. Article 174 makes this clear as does Article 89 in conjunction with Article 4.
“It is of considerable importance that politicians stick to their commitments or do not make such commitments in the first place.
“Regrettably, this is not the situation, therefore, in accordance with the relevant rules and procedures of the Conservative Party and the 1922 Committee this is a formal letter of No Confidence in the Leader of the Party, the Rt Hon Theresa May.”
Meanwhile, former Brexit minister Steve Baker said: “We’ve tried everything to change policy but not the Prime Minister, but it has not worked. It is too late. We need a new leader.”
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