I called on Theresa May to resign, but now is not the time for a leadership contest — the PM must stay to deliver Brexit, says Grant Shapps

IN the wake of last year’s disastrous General Election, where we jettisoned our hard-won majority, the Prime Minister addressed the backbench 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs explaining that she would “serve only as long as we wanted”.

Bruised by an election that wasn’t required, the shrunken parliamentary party accepted her offer.

Nonetheless, by the end of the summer there was a sense of growing concern culminating in Cabinet ill-discipline surrounding a lacklustre 2017 party conference.

As anxiety grew, I was joined by 30 colleagues — from backbenchers to Cabinet — who were keen to have a chat with the PM about the direction we were taking.

But this gentle and constructive approach was shattered by a front-page splash breaking the story. Suddenly it was a coup. And we were the plotters.

Now, politicians are famously blasé about saying one thing in private then something completely different in public.

But on this particular morning, I did not mince my words.

Given our lost majority, our lacklustre conference and the need to be match-fit for the forthcoming Brexit negotiations, I wondered out loud whether it might be better to set a clear timetable to elect a new leader?

“No!” — shouted some vociferous colleagues. With those most in favour of Brexit shouting the loudest.

The Prime Minister says “Brexit means Brexit” and she must stay to deliver.

As the Brexit negotiations began in earnest, the question of leadership was all but settled for months to come.

About those negotiations, let’s be honest. Brexit was never going to be easy.

Unwinding 45 years of escalating EU entanglement is a complex task.

So it stands to reason that our country’s approach, our negotiating skills and our collective nerve were always going to be put to the test.

And now, as we reach the culmination of these negotiations, plenty of colleagues have expressed mounting disquiet.

Do the complex customs arrangements outlined in the controversial Chequers agreement really add up to leaving the EU? Will the European Court of Justice still tell us what to do, even once we’re gone? And will the free movement of people ever stop?

In truth, the detailed Chequers proposal laid bare the messy compromises that often intervene when slogans such as Take Back Control meet the reality of fudged negotiations. With Brexiteers finding the resulting White Paper very hard to swallow.

And then something I never expected. Some of those colleagues who had protested loudest about my suggestion of an orderly leadership transition started clamouring for Theresa May to go.

A colleague, who had called up my constituency chairman last year to complain that my leadership suggestion destabilised the party, now resigned from Government himself. And then approached me to apologise for being “naive back then”.

Two Cabinet ministers, along with several junior ministers, bag carriers and party vice-chairmen, quit the Government. And furious Leave-minded Tory MPs posted on Brexiteer WhatsApp groups, using words including “betrayal”, “duped” and “liar”.

Some even went public, announcing they had submitted letters demanding a leadership contest to the chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady.

With rumours rife that the critical 48th letter might soon trigger a leadership election. But among the pandemonium, I am clear. If there was ever a moment for a change of leadership, it had long since passed during 2017.

Now is the time for us to close ranks, buckle up and get these EU negotiations done.

My logic is simple. Conservative leadership rules mean that by the time candidate nominations, MP sifting, hustings and membership votes are done, it will take us three months to elect a new leader and, while in power, three months to get a new Prime Minister.

But three months takes us beyond the October 18 European Council summit, by which time the EU and UK must have hammered out a fully-fledged Brexit deal.

This will then be voted on by the British and European Parliaments, as well as every member state, before we leave the EU on March 29, 2019.

So, in a world where little is clear about the Brexit process, one thing is for sure. We simply cannot countenance changing leader during this critical period.

I argued early on that someone — not responsible for having lost our majority — might stand a better chance negotiating with Europe. And with the benefit of hindsight it is easy to see how mistakes in both the substance and sequencing of our bargaining position were made.

Yet in truth, Theresa May has been walking an impossible tightrope this past year. Remoaners to her left. Hard-line Brexiteers to her right. And while this past fortnight has certainly been her most precarious, it is hard not to marvel at the sheer fortitude of the PM.

Ever since Parliament passed Article 50, the clock has been ticking down to Brexit.

From today, there are just 250 days to go until we leave the EU — with or without a deal. So there is no doubt in my mind that now is the time to come together, support the PM’s mission impossible and shred those leadership challenge letters — for the sake of our nation’s future.