Whatever Happened to the Cabinet Plot to Oust Theresa May?
Whatever Happened to the Cabinet Plot to Oust Theresa May?
(Bloomberg) -- Theresa May woke on Monday facing demands to quit as U.K. prime minister and newspaper predictions that her own disillusioned senior ministers would push her to name a date for her departure at a 10 a.m. meeting.
Instead, the subject didn’t come up. According to people familiar with the discussions, nobody even mentioned the question of whether May should carry on as Conservative Party leader during the meeting of her Cabinet, which lasted about two hours.
Two people in the room -- Environment Secretary Michael Gove and Cabinet Office minister David Lidington -- had been touted in reports published on Sunday as potential contenders to be emergency prime minister for an interim period. They both quickly denied they were interested in the job and the attempted coup seemed to fizzle out.
May has held a precarious grip on power since losing her ruling majority in a disastrous election gamble in 2017. Yet she’s survived two formal attempts to remove her from office.
May told ministers on Monday that she’s inclined to bring her EU withdrawal agreement back to Parliament for another vote on Tuesday, but it all depends on whether she can convince enough pro-Brexit Conservatives to drop their opposition and back her plan. Some of these Tories argue that if she did promise a date when she would quit, they would be more likely to vote for her deal.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Ross in London at tross54@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Thomas Penny, Stuart Biggs
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