Tories step up plans to oust May
Conservatives have stepped up their plans to force Theresa May to resign as prime minister, according to reports by ITV.
As Brexit talks resume in Westminster between the Labour party and Conservatives in Westminster, member of the influential 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers will be planning how to tell the prime minister she must resign before the end of June.
Because she survived a vote of confidence held at the end of last year, another vote cannot be held until December. However, many believe 1922 committee chair Graham Brady will put pressure on for May to stick to her promise to resign once a deal is passed, potentially asking her to set a specific date for her departure.
Meanwhile, sentiment in the Conservative party has already reportedly turned sour against May in many circles, with potential replacements for the prime minister already lining up.
“She seems to be mainly staying on out of a sense of stubbornness,” one Tory MP reportedly told the Guardian newspaper. “She has nothing more to offer the government or the country, so it seems time to turn the page on what has been a fairly dark chapter of events.”
Coe: Cuts to youth services responsible for rise in knife crime
Olympic legend an influential Tory peer Sebastian Coe has blamed savage cuts to youth services for the rising levels of knife crime in Britain.
Coe lashed out at the government, linking a cut to youth services of around 70 percent since the Conservatives came into power, with soaring knife crime in England. Coe added the government had failed to recognise the “bloody obvious” – that well funded youth activities help to reduce criminal activity.
Speaking this weekend, Coe said: “It’s still not funded properly. We’ve strangled the life out of the youth services in this country, yet we are surprised that we have big problems in our inner cities,”
“Politicians, they still really don’t get that. They don’t understand what sport is doing at community level.”
“It’s so bloody obvious and yet we’re still sitting in the same forums, the same conventions and nobody’s actually grabbing it and saying, ‘This can make a massive and a huge difference’.
“You need to incentivise it. Can you afford not to do it? No you can’t, so you find the money.”
Change UK lines up for MEP election
Anti-Brexit party Change UK is getting ready to reveal 70 candidates it will put forward for next month’s European elections, after receiving applications from the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Green party.
The party’s interim leader, the former Tory MP Heidi Allen, said that Change UK was “natural home of the ‘Remain Alliance’” and those who wanted a fresh Brexit vote.
According to a YouGov survey released last week, the Brexit party has 23% support from those asked how they would vote in the upcoming elections, with Labour on 22% and the Conservatives on 17%.
Speaking this weekend, Allen said: “From across the country and old party divides, people are coming together to tell Labour and Conservatives leaderships that they’ve had enough – enough of them focusing on self preservation and wilful facilitation of a damaging Brexit. There’s a real appetite building to support Change UK and send a clear message; give us a people’s vote with a chance to remain and get out of the Brexit mess.”
Johnson: Climate change activists “smug, irritating and disruptive”
Boris Johnson has labelled climate change activists such as those from Extinction rebellion as “smug, irritating and disruptive”, adding that he is “utterly fed up” with suggestions that their opinions “are more important than my own”.
The former foreign secretary lashed out at young climate change activists, saying he was sympathetic to the aims of the protesters, but said it should be taking place in China rather than the UK.
Extinction Rebellion activists and others brought parts of London to a standstill last week, with protests that included blocking main roads in the capital, and some protesters glueing themselves to trains.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Johnson said: “I share some of the irritation at these climate change protesters. I am not in favour of paralysing public transport in the greatest city on Earth, and stopping people from getting to work. I don’t want some double-barrelled activist telling me that air travel is only to be used in emergencies – when his own Instagram account contains pictures of his recent skiing holiday.
“I admire some of these celebrity thesps, but when I see them mounted on a pink boat in Oxford Circus, blocking the traffic and telling the world how many trees they have planted to offset the carbon footprint of their flights in from Los Angeles, I slightly grind my teeth. Watch more More than 1,000 Extinction Rebellion protesters arrested
“And I am utterly fed up with being told by nice young people that their opinions are more important than my own – because they will be around a lot longer than me, and therefore that they have a greater stake in the future of the planet. With all due humility to my juniors, I intend to be alive for a very long time.”
