Lord Graham Brady reveals what it’s like to tell a Tory leader they’re done | Political news

Lord Graham Brady’s reputation for firing prime ministers has made him something of a celebrity in the world of politics.

But informing a Tory leader that his time is up is not always a pleasant task, the former chairman of the 1922 Conservative Party Committee told Sky News.

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This was demanded of him on more than one occasion during his 14 years chairing the influential group of backbench MPs, a period that saw five prime ministers, Brexit, COVID and the war in Ukraine.

The hardest, he said Politics Hub with Sophy Ridgeit was Theresa May.

She became prime minister in 2016, after David Cameron resigned over the EU referendum result, and was ousted three years later over opposition to his Brexit deal.

It was never going to be easy, but after his bid for an early general election in 2017 backfired, “it went from very difficult to completely impossible because we didn’t have a majority in the House of Commons,” he said.

“It had become clear that Theresa May could not achieve the central aim of her government.

“And I think it was obvious to almost every fellow that he should go.”

But having already survived a vote of no confidence, the former Minister of the Interior had to resign on his own, or face the 1922 Committee that changed the rules to give another chance to his own deputies to expel her.

Lord Brady, who stood down as an MP ahead of the July election, said: “I had a number of discussions with her, which eventually led to the point where she agreed that she had to put a date for the exit, and that it was the most painful.”

He added that it was “obviously a very difficult point” for Mrs May, who submitted a tearful resignation in May 2019, “and it was something I didn’t like to do.”

“But I was trying to get to the point where she could have an exit that was less bloody, less traumatic than it would have been otherwise,” he said.

There was no such problem for Liz Truss, who became the the shortest prime minister in modern British history after her disastrous mini-budget spooked the markets and turned the public and her party against her.

Despite being unrepentant ever since, blaming things like the “deep state” for their downfallhe knew it was over when Lord Brady came calling, he said.

“When I went to see her to tell her I thought time was up, she agreed.

“That became a very easy conversation.”

He added: “Had he not resigned that day I think we would have had a vote of confidence and I strongly suspect he would have lost it.

“In fact, what happened was that she had come to the same conclusion as I, and others, that there was no way to get it back up and running.”

As for Boris Johnson, who faced a confidence vote over the party scandal, Lord Brady said those who make the rules should play by them.

“The fact that Boris was presiding over these very complicated (Covid) rules and guidelines that were constantly changing, provided the ultimate irony that that’s what got him,” he said.