THERESA May will today urge her party to “shape up” and “do its duty” by not obsessing about its own concerns but, rather, put those of the British people first.
The sentiment echoes that of the Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, who earlier this week made clear she would not engage in the “Tory psycho-drama” that is the debate about the Prime Minister’s leadership and urged fellow Conservatives to “man up” and take the fight to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.
READ MORe: Boris Johnson urges party to set out positive vision for Britain post Brexit: "let the lion roar"
After days of internal chatter about her leadership, Mrs May will use her keynote conference speech this morning to make clear she has no intention of stepping aside any time soon.
“It has never been my style to hide from a challenge, to shrink from a task, to retreat in the face of difficulty, to give up and turn away.
"And it is when tested the most that we reach deep within ourselves and find that our capacity to rise to the challenge before us may well be limitless.”
The PM will urge her party to put internal divisions aside and concentrate on governing for the country.
“Let us do our duty by Britain. Let us shape up and give the country the government it needs,” she will declare.
"For beyond this hall, beyond the gossip pages of the newspapers, and beyond the streets, corridors and meeting rooms of Westminster, life continues; the daily lives of ordinary working people go on.
"And they must be our focus today. Not worrying about our job security but theirs. Not addressing our concerns but the issues, the problems, the challenges, that concern them. Not focusing on our future but on the future of their children and their grandchildren; doing everything we can to ensure their tomorrow will be better than our today.
"That is what I am in politics for. To make a difference. To change things for the better. To hand on to the next generation a country that is stronger, fairer and more prosperous.”
READ MORe: Boris Johnson urges party to set out positive vision for Britain post Brexit: "let the lion roar"
On Tuesday, Mrs May made clear she was “in charge” of the Brexit process but resisted pressure from some colleagues to sack Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, over his outbursts on Brexit.
The party leader argued that she did not want a Cabinet of "yes men" but, rather, wanted to hear "different voices" contributing to the development of policy around the Downing Street table.
In a raft of TV interview ahead of her keynote speech, the PM denied she felt she was being "undermined" by Mr Johnson and insisted she still had the authority to push through her agenda.
She told the BBC: "There is a lot of talk about Boris's job or this job or that job inside the Cabinet…People…don't want us to be thinking about our jobs, they want us to be thinking about their jobs and their futures."
But as the European Parliament voted by an overwhelming majority of 557-92 for a motion saying that the Brexit talks had made "insufficient progress" to proceed to their second phase on a future trade deal, Manfred Weber, an ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, openly called for Mr Johnson to be sacked.
In a message to Mrs May, the leader of the centre-right EPP grouping of MEPs said: "Please sack Johnson because we need a clear answer to who is responsible for the British position."
READ MORe: Boris Johnson urges party to set out positive vision for Britain post Brexit: "let the lion roar"
During her round of pre-speech interviews, the Tory leader denied conference, which has seen initiatives on student debt, rented accommodation and nursing training, was being driven by the agenda set by Labour in Brighton last week.
"Labour can promise all they like but promises are no use to anybody if they are not going to be put into practice. The difference between us is, because we take a balanced approach to our economy, when we say we are going to do something, we know we can do it," she added.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel