Brexit woes mount for May, Fox says `foolish' to challenge her

Theresa May is fighting on multiple fronts as critics inside her governing Conservative Party threaten to upend her plans for Brexit and even her premiership.

But in a key intervention Liam Fox, an ardent supporter of Brexit and her international trade secretary, had a message for Tories thinking of calling for no confidence vote in May’s leadership:

"They would be foolish to do anything to destabilise the government and the prime minister. Nothing will change the electoral arithmetic.” Tories only have a working majority in Parliament thanks to the Democratic Unionist Party.

The government has been given the task of delivering Brexit and "the prime minister has shown the resilience” to do the job,” Fox said in an interview. "Ultimately we have to get an agreement that will please different wings of the Conservative Party but most importantly that is good for the country.”

May’s party is split over how to leave the European Union as time runs out for finalizing the U.K.’s policy. Opponents of retaining EU trade rules after a divorce want her to fire Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, who they say is trying to deny them the clean, quick break they want.

Some Conservative lawmakers complain she’s failing to show leadership, amid media reports that they are poised to try to trigger a vote of no confidence in the prime minister. Even U.S. President Donald Trump offered a critical assessment of May’s handling of Brexit, saying in an interview broadcast at the weekend he’d have taken a "tougher stand” with the EU.

May’s difficulties are mounting at a crucial time for her negotiations with the EU and the passage of vital legislation through parliament that ultimately could derail her timetable or force her into more concessions that would divide her government even further.

Talks are about to begin in Brussels on the transitional phase, which is designed to give businesses certainty that nothing will change for up to two years after Britain leaves the bloc in 2019.

More Chaos?

Instead of providing reassurance, the Conservative, or Tory, debate over transitional arrangements has thrown May’s plans into disarray. She’s proposing a status-quo bridging period where the U.K. keeps to the rules of the EU single market and customs union. That’s unacceptable to many Brexit-supporting Tories, who see such a plan as a potential trap.

On Sunday, euroskeptic Tories demanded that May show she’s serious about quitting the EU’s single market and customs union. They think her plan for a transition phase will tie Britain too closely to the bloc’s rules for too long.

"There’s no clear destination either in the government’s mind or indeed agreed with the European Union, and there’s no set time limit” on the transition phase, said Conservative parliamentarian and hard-line Brexit supporter Jacob Rees-Mogg. "One friend of mine said that it looked more like a plank than a bridge,” he said on ITV’s "Peston on Sunday” show.

Rees-Mogg made clear he doesn’t support Hammond, while his colleague Nadine Dorries said the chancellor must be fired.

‘Real Trouble’

On Thursday, Hammond enraged Brexit backers by saying he hoped the U.K. and EU economies would only move "very modestly apart.” Rees-Mogg said Hammond’s stance spelled "real trouble” for the government, and the chancellor’s cabinet colleague Natalie Evans became the most senior Tory to rebuke him in public.

May was lent some support on Monday by the pro-EU lawmaker Justine Greening, who she sacked as education secretary earlier this month, and who has the potential to be a thorn in the premier’s side from the Tory backbenches.

"I remain a strong backer of the prime minister,” Greening said in a BBC radio interview. "I’ve been very disappointed to see the soundings off. I think they need to stop and I think people need to get behind her. I think she is doing an important job for our country and we need to support her in that impossible - almost - task that she has, negotiating Brexit.”

But further unrest was revealed by the Telegraph newspaper on Monday, which published details of a Whatsapp exchange among Conservatives last month. When one lawmaker, Ben Bradley, complained about being called a sellout and a traitor, Claire Perry, the energy minister who was promoted to sit in cabinet this month, tells him to ignore that "mob,” before hypothesizing that they are "mostly elderly retired men” who "represent the swivel-eyed few.”

May’s de facto deputy, Cabinet Office minister David Lidington, appealed for calm. Tories critical of May’s leadership should "come together in a spirit of mutual respect,” Lidington told BBC television’s "Andrew Marr” show on Sunday.

He warned rebels to look at "the bigger picture,” which shows the Conservatives neck-and-neck with the opposition Labour Party in the polls.