15 November 2018

The list that proves Theresa May cannot pass a Brexit deal

The number of Tories who have resigned from the government payroll alone – to say nothing of backbenchers – is far bigger than the number of potential Labour rebels.

By Patrick Maguire

It is at this point abundantly clear that Theresa May does not have enough Conservative votes to secure a Commons majority for her Brexit deal. Nor can she rely on the ten MPs of the Democratic Unionist Party.

Her only hope lies in convincing enough Labour MPs to back her Withdrawal Agreement come the meaningful vote. It does not take long, however, to reach the incontrovertible conclusion that it’s a forlorn one.

The number of Tory MPs who have resigned from the government payroll over Brexit alone is bigger than the number of Labour MPs who could realistically be expected to rebel – and as this list gets bigger, the chance of Downing Street convincing opposition MPs to vote with May gets smaller still.

Steve Baker
Guto Bebb
Ben Bradley
Suella Braverman
Conor Burns
Maria Caulfield
Rehman Chishti
Robert Courts
David Davis
Chris Green
Ranil Jayawardena
Andrea Jenkyns
Boris Johnson
Jo Johnson
Phillip Lee
Scott Mann
Esther McVey
Dominic Raab
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Shailesh Vara
Gareth Johnson

That makes 21 as good as nailed-on votes against the Withdrawal Agreement. Add to that the 10 DUP MPs and you have 30 – to say nothing of the many more Conservative backbenchers who have also signalled that they will vote against it too or have submitted no-confidence votes in Theresa May.

The number of Tory MPs who have publicly declared that they submitted letters to Graham Brady is currently running at 26. For our purposes 22 – that number minus Baker, Bradley, Green and Jenkyns, who all resigned from the payroll – is the number that matters.