Brexit news latest: ERG deputy Mark Francois predicts Theresa May's time as PM will be up if Tories suffer European elections humiliation

Mark Francois: 'The Conservatives are are going to have a very tough night on May 23'
Isabel Infantes/AFP/Getty Images
James Morris4 May 2019
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Hardline Tory Brexiteer Mark Francois today predicted Theresa May’s time as Prime Minister will be up if the Conservatives suffer a “dreadful” night in the upcoming European elections.

Mr Francois, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s deputy for the pro-Brexit European Research Group (ERG) of Tory MPs, said the patience of the party’s 1922 Committee could finally snap if – as has been forecast in polls – it is humiliated in the May 23 elections.

It comes after the Conservatives suffered significant losses in Thursday’s local elections.

Labour also lost seats, while the Lib Dems, Greens and independents make gains.

In an interview with the Standard in his Westminster office, the former minister, who has so far been part of two attempts to oust Mrs May, also refused to sympathise with her on a personal level: “Her heart has never been in leaving the EU… no, I don’t feel sorry for her.”

Mr Francois is arguably the most outspoken ERG member, known for his colourful outbursts (telling Chancellor and Remain backer Philip Hammond “up yours”) and on-air confrontations (getting into a heated staring contest with author and Remainer Will Self on BBC Politics Live).

And asked about his party’s European prospects later this month, Mr Francois was just as forthright: “Let me be very clear: I am going to vote Conservative in the European elections. Let there be no confusion about that. But if we believe the bookies, they say we are going to have a pretty dreadful night.

"The door knocking I did for the local elections seems to confirm that. We are going to have a very tough night on May 23.

“If the Conservatives do have a very bad night, that will increase the pressure on the Prime Minister to step down.”

Mark Francois in conversation with anti-Brexit campaigner Steve Bray in Westminster last month
Yui Mok/PA

Last month, Mr Francis wrote a letter entitled “enough is enough” to 1922 chair Sir Graham Brady, calling for an indicative vote of confidence in Mrs May’s leadership. It ultimately failed after the committee voted by nine votes to seven against this.

But he insisted: “It was extremely close, and I believe the committee might well review that decision after the European elections.”

Mr Francois, though, didn’t raise the Prime Minister’s Brexit woes when he last spoke to her in the lobbies a few weeks ago: “We just had some pleasant chit-chat. I don’t think we spoke about Europe.”

There has even been chatter about the Rayleigh and Wickford MP taking over Mrs May’s job after he bet £10 on himself taking over as Tory leader.

Mr Francois at the 'March to Leave' protest in Parliament Square on March 29: the original scheduled Brexit date
Kirsty O'Connor/PA

“I did it as a joke with a friend," he said. "I got 200/1. But another friend of mine put a bet on this week, where my odds had been slashed to 100/1.

“I think there might well be an ERG candidate in the leadership election, but realistically it’s unlikely to be me.”

Pressed on whether he would like to stand, he would only say: “Well, I did it [the bet] for a laugh.

“Let’s see who emerges. But I suspect somebody might. You may not have long to wait to find out.”

Mr Francois’ Brexiteer standing is such that a new brewery in his constituency named a beer after him. It is called “Special Place in Hell”, mocking European Council president Donald Tusk’s inflammatory tirade against Brexiteers in February.

Proudly producing a bottle of the four per cent ale in his office, he beamed that “it’s going absolute gangbusters” in the brewery’s taproom.

But he said he was deeply unhappy at how the ERG has been portrayed in the Brexit debate: “We have had all sorts of name-calling. David Lammy said we were Nazis. The Chancellor called us extremists, Chris Patten [former Tory chair] called us vermin and Donald Tusk sent us all to hell.

“David’s comments were utterly ridiculous and he demeaned himself by making them. At the end of the day, we want Britain to leave the EU, and that’s what 17.4 million UK citizens voted for. Does that make me a Nazi? No, of course it doesn’t.

“I think there are many people in the establishment – and I would count David Lammy as part of that – who can’t stand the ERG because they desperately want to remain in the EU and we want to leave. Because we are so determined to fight for that, they don’t like us."

And he insisted: “I think this debate is morphing from just a debate between Leave and Remain. I think it’s turning into a struggle between the establishment and the people. In the end, the people will win.”

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