Page 16 Daily Mail, Friday, August 16, 2019
Tories cosy ing up to
Corbyn told: You’ll
NEVER be forgiven
REBEL Tories were last night
warned they would never be for-
given after they threatened to help
Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street
to block a No Deal Brexit.
In an extraordinary move, backbencher
Guto Bebb yesterday declared he would
rather install the Labour leader as a
caretaker prime minister than allow
Boris Johnson to take the country out of
the EU without an agreement.
‘A short-term Jeremy Corbyn government is
less damaging than the generational damage
that would be caused by a No Deal Brexit,’
the Tory MP told the BBC. Meanwhile, three
Tory former ministers yesterday agreed to
meet the Labour leader to plot how they
could work together to stop No Deal.
They responded positively to Mr Corbyn’s
plan to stop No Deal, even though Liberal
working with Mr Corbyn, Mr
Shapps added: ‘I just say to them
you know you really need to think
very very carefully about installing
Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street.
It absolutely cannot happen for
the sake of this country.’
Tory ex-ministers Dominic
Grieve, Sir Oliver Letwin and
Dame Caroline Spelman yester-
day accepted an invitation from
Mr Corbyn to work together to
prevent No Deal. In a letter of
reply to the Labour leader, the trio
and ex-Tory MP Nick Boles, who
now sits as an independent, wrote
that they believed stopping the
country leaving the EU without an
agreement should be their ‘com-
mon priority’ as they agreed to
meet in the coming weeks ‘to dis-
cuss the different ways that this
might be achieved’.
It followed Mr Corbyn’s extraor-
dinary written plea on Wednesdaynight, to rebel Tories and opposi-
tion leaders, for support to help
him into Downing Street to stop a
No Deal Brexit.
He declared he was ready to col-
lapse Boris Johnson’s government
in a confidence vote and then lead
a ‘strictly time limited’ govern-
ment to extend Article 50. He said
he would then call a general elec-
tion – at which Labour would cam-
paign for a second referendum.But there were no guarantees
about how ‘time limited’ such a
government might be, with Tories
fearing that he would cling to
No 10 indefinitely.
The situation is likely to come to
a head next month as MPs
opposed to No Deal try to stop Mr
Johnson from taking Britain out
of the EU on October 31 without
an agreement. Dame Caroline last
night said that while she washappy to work with Mr Corbyn on
options such as changing the law
to block No Deal she would not
vote to bring down the Govern-
ment in a confidence vote.
Mr Grieve said he believed it was
‘unlikely’ Mr Corbyn would suc-
ceed in becoming a caretaker
prime minister.
He added: ‘But he has written a
letter in which he sets out his
desire to prevent a No Deal BrexitTHE BATTLE FOR BREXIT
‘Would destroy
jobs and livelihoods’By John Stevens
and Claire Ellicott
Democrat leader Jo Swinson rejected the
idea, saying Mr Corbyn could not command
the confidence of the Commons.
Cabinet minister Grant Shapps last night
urged his Tory colleagues to ‘think very, very
carefully’ about the dangers of helping Mr
Corbyn into power.
The Transport Secretary said: ‘It’s abso-
lutely extraordinary that any Conservative
MP considered even for one minute install-
ing Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street.
‘Jeremy Corbyn would wreck our economy,
he would destroy jobs and the livelihoods,
savings, I think he also can’t be trusted with
security or crime.’
In an appeal to Tory MPs thinking about
ONCE part of Margaret
Thatcher’s policy unit, Sir
Oliver Letwin backed the
poll tax fiasco which
helped end her tenure.
A memo from the time
revealed he blamed the
1985 Broadwater Farm
riots in North London, on
the ‘bad moral attitudes’.
The Eton and Cam-bridge-educated MP for
West Dorset, 63, joined
the Cabinet as Chancellor
of the Duchy of Lancaster
under David Cameron.
A journalist once con-
fronted him while he was
wearing a toga at a party
after it emerged he had
put forward £20million of
unplanned spending cuts.Toga-wearing knight
who backed poll tax
FORMER Tory party chair-
man Dame Caroline
Spelman was environ-
ment secretary under
David Cameron.
The Tory MP for Meriden
in the West Midlands, 61,
was criticised in 2008 for
using her parliamentary
allowance to pay her chil-
dren’s former nanny. Shewas made a dame in 2017
for political and public
service, but has now
joined forces with Labour
MP Jack Dromey to ensure
Britain leaves with a deal.
She also masterminded
a letter to Theresa May
calling on her to rule out
the prospect of leaving
the EU without a deal.Dame gave taxpayers’
cash to her ex-nanny
‘Short-term damage’: Guto Bebb