UK prime minister hangs on to job after party vote

| 13/12/2018 | 8 Comments
Cayman News Service

Theresa May addresses the British House of Commons

(CNS): A vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Theresa May’s leadership of the Conservative Party was defeated Wednesday, allowing the beleaguered British leader to hang on to her job in the face of continuing chaos in UK politics circulating around the country’s attempts to leave the European Union. However, although her leadership cannot be challenged again for another year from within the party, there is still uncertainty as to how much longer she will remain as the prime minister. The vote may have, for the moment, quieted some of her backbench Brexiteer critics over the controversial deal but it is unlikely to last, since 117 of her own Conservative MPs voted for her to go against 200 who backed her leadership. 

The internal Tory party vote in their leader was triggered late Tuesday night when Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the back-bench 1922 Committee, called the PM to tell her he had received 48 letters from Conservative MPs, which is the number (15%) needed to call a no confidence vote in the party leadership. The letters had come largely from Brexit supporting back-bench MPs  who do not like May’s proposed exit deal because they feel it would still leave the UK entangled in Europe.

While she has survived this vote, May was forced on Tuesday to cancel the parliamentary vote on Brexit, knowing it would not pass, but subsequent indications that the European Union is not prepared to change it means she remains in political trouble.

During her efforts Tuesday to keep her government together, which does not have a majority in the House of Commons and depends on the support of a handful of unionist MPs from Northern Ireland, she revealed that she would step down before the next election. But the turmoil in British politics as a result of Brexit has escalated over the last few weeks and the possibility of the current government falling remains.

Following the vote, Cayman Islands Premier Alden McLaughlin, who has just returned from the UK following constitutional talks and the Overseas Territories Joint Ministerial Council meetings in London, offered his congratulations.

“I wish her and her government every success with the difficult ongoing Brexit negotiations,” he said. “I would also like to take this opportunity to thank her again for meeting with me earlier this year in London to discuss matters surrounding the Cayman Islands constitutional arrangement with the UK and providing her support for a review of the constitution.”

The Cayman government may also be breathing a shy of relief in the hope that the failed no confidence vote will avert the likelihood of an imminent general election in the UK, which, if called in the near future, would likely see the Labour party prevail.

The local government and the offshore sector here would be unlikely to welcome such an outcome as there are widespread concerns that the Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, would take further and more threatening steps over and above the existing demand from the UK that the overseas territories implement beneficial ownership registers, which some fear would undermine the local financial industry.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Tags: , ,

Category: UK, World News

Comments (8)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. Anonymous says:

    Politicians are like pastors, they spread lies and deceit to gain profit for themselves. When will you people wake up and stop voting.

    1
    1
  2. Anonymous says:

    Who cares, at the end of the day, the politicians all go home to their nice gated communities with millions dollar homes. Put that at risk so they have some skin in the game and we might find less talk and more action.

    2
    1
  3. Anonymous says:

    Zombie PM

  4. Anonymous says:

    She is in an even weaker position than before

    She needs every single one of those 117 votes in order to get any deal she proposes through the house of commons

    Not to mention the fact that she isn’t even guranteed 200 votes on her bill as some of the MPs who voted in confidence of her government simply were trying to avoid a weekslong leadership competition at this time and will likely still vote down her deal

    You couldn’t pay me to become PM today

    David Cameron might have been a fool for promising the referendum in the first place, but at least he had the good sense to get out of dodge when he saw what it actually meant

  5. Anonymous says:

    Still a bit better than the 33.8% or 175 total votes need to be the representative for North Side.

    6
    1
  6. Anonymous says:

    Retain your job with 200 votes in your favour,

    or 63% of the 317 Tory seats voting,

    or 30.8% of the total 650 House of Commons Seats,

    of which your Party has 48.8%.

    This morning I am as dumb as Boz’ Hoggs’ Sheriff!

    • Anonymous says:

      LOL!

    • Anonymous says:

      It wasn’t a vote of no confidence in the Government, just an internal issue over TM’s position as Leader of the Tory Party, so the only votes that count are the 63% of Tory MPs. The 30.8% of House of Commons seats will probably be important in January, however, if Compo thinks he has a chance of triggering a General Election

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.