The BBC were reporting last night (HERE) that apparently credible sources in the Conservative party were saying the 48 letters have now been sent and they expect a confidence vote to be triggered. This morning, just after 7:30, the BBC announced the number has been reached and the motion of no confidence will be held tonight between 6 pm and 10 pm. An unnamed cabinet minister says it would be 'madness to try to get rid of her now' but this is what will happen tonight.
We are an absolute laughing stock already, so what the world will make of this latest descent into farce I wouldn't like to say. Brexit has been described as a Tory party psychodrama but it has now sucked in the whole nation. When Lord Kerr drafted up Article 50 I am sure he had no idea that the first government to use it would be British and they would call an election and force a leadership challenge in the tight two year negotiating period. It's insanity isn't it?
The bizarre thing is that the EU have spent eighteen months negotiating with what they must have thought was the UK government but it turns out the PM can't get the deal ratified by parliament.
ITV earlier reported that confidence in Theresa May is ebbing away (HERE). I think this was a statement of the obvious. A sizeable minority in her own party have lost confidence in her and the EU has lost confidence in ever getting a deal past parliament. She is paying the price for not reaching a consensus for a negotiating mandate before starting talks.
Sir Bill Cash (however did he get knighted), even before this morning's stunning news says she is at the cliff edge of resignation (HERE).
Mrs May could win the vote tonight but whether or not she would want to carry on is hard to say. If she does continue, what she does is anybody's guess. If she can't get her deal through parliament perhaps a second referendum may be the only way out. If this is what transpires, the great irony is that the Brexiteers may have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
The only reason she has remained in office until now is that the two opposing factions in the Tory party can't come up with a replacement. Some suggestions are simply laughable. Raab, Javid, McVey seem to think they are in with a chance but nobody else does.
There was for me a light bulb moment listening to Politics Live on yesterday. A discussion about who might replace Theresa May mentioned various names, none with any seriousness or enthusiasm. Andrea Jenkins, who is so far to the right she is almost out of sight, prefers pro-Brexit Johnson or Davis. Ken Clarke and Anna Soubry were mentioned for the other side. You can see that none of these are even remote possibilities, they are far too divisive.
Mrs May has been riding two recalcitrant horses which up to now have been prepared to let her get on with it, and she was perhaps the only person who could manage the trick, although this is now proving impossible even for her. If she goes, I really don't see another candidate who can unite (and I use the term in every sense, including ironic) the party and deliver a smooth, orderly Brexit.
The divisions are now so open, deep and poisonous any kind of reconciliation or truce seems out of the question. If you accept this, it's very hard to see how the two wings can survive as one party and this may prove to be another and perhaps final nail in the Brexit coffin.
An EU politician, whose name I didn't catch, was on Channel 4 last night and said there were now only two choices for the UK, the negotiated deal or remain. I think the point he was making was that no deal would damage both sides. Despite this, the Brexiteers, including Paterson again this morning, continue to say that no deal would be perfectly okay. It would not. There would be utter chaos and serious people on both sides of The Channel, will never contemplate it.
If the Article 50 period is to be extended, the EU will have to agree unanimously and the price of granting an extension may be the holding of a referendum in the UK with the binary choice of the deal or remain.
If Mrs May survives, this may be the choice she will put to the people.
If she loses or resigns because the margin of the no confidence vote was so narrow and eventually a Brexiteer becomes leader, buckle up. We will be entering the unkown.
