Theresa May vows to crush Tory Brexit rebels and Labour Party with snap general election
THERESA May last night vowed to crush both Tory Brexit rebels and Labour with a snap general election on June 8.
Speaking to The Sun, the PM revealed the reason why she came to the bombshell decision which stunned Britain yesterday.
Mrs May, who announced the poll dressed in Tory blue outside No 10, said she is going to the country after pro-EU MPs vowed to torpedo key Brexit laws.
She accused them of “trying to stop us every step of the way”.
Shooting down the Government’s Great Repeal Bill would make it “harder for us negotiating with Europe”, Mrs May insisted.
In the exclusive interview, the PM also laid down the gauntlet to her own MPs to sign up to her domestic vision for Britain too — or step aside.
And she opened the door to scrapping a raft of 2015 election pledges that have shackled her government, including Britain’s jumbo foreign aid giveaway.
The PM’s dramatic announcement on No10’s steps at 11.06am fired the starting gun for a 50-day campaign.
Theresa May made clear she is seeking a strong mandate to negotiate Brexit and said: “The country is coming together but Westminster is not.
"At this moment of enormous national interest there should be unity.”
The announcement was a significant U-turn following her insistence just last month that an early poll would be wrong and destabilising.
On another momentous day for British politics;
- LABOUR was plunged into total disarray as some of its MPs vowed to campaign independently of struggling leader Jeremy Corbyn;
- FORMER Prime Minister Tony Blair urged voters to back MPs from any party who would be prepared to scupper Mrs May’s final Brexit deal;
- ANGRY Tory MPs in marginal seats hit out at an “unnecessary” early election, amid fears of tough battles to keep their seats with the resurgent Lib Dems;
- THERESA May confirmed she will duck a telly showdown with fellow party leaders — telling The Sun TV debates are “highly unlikely”;
- SCOTLAND’S First Minister Nicola Sturgeon claimed a general election win north of the border would be a mandate for her to carry out the SNP’s pledge to hold a second independence referendum, and;
- THE Tories hired election guru Sir Lynton Crosby again to run their snap campaign.
The PM revealed that she decided on a snap general election while on a walking holiday in Wales with her husband Philip.
Today Mrs May will ask the Commons to back her election call by holding an immediate vote under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.
Under predecessor David Cameron’s law, she needs two thirds of all MPs’ permission to call an election before 2020.
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An ICM poll taken after the election announcement yesterday gave the Tories a huge 21 point lead over Labour — its joint biggest since June 1983.
Some pollsters predicted Mrs May could win a majority of 100 — up from her current wafer-thin margin of just 17.
But critics insisted the PM has acted over fears that Brexit talks would run over by several years, leaving her facing the nightmare scenario of still no EU deal by the next general election.
The Pound rose strongly on the news, but share prices fell — with the FTSE 100 index closing down nearly 2.5 per cent or 180 points.