How the secret plotters dealt a final blow to Theresa May

Theresa May was nearly 20 minutes into Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday when the door of Andrea Leadsom’s grand Commons office swung open.

Out marched Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, shorn of his usual baritone joviality, followed by Environment Secretary Michael Gove, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox and Treasury Chief Secretary Liz Truss.

Last out was a pensive Ms Leadsom, who turned to Ms Truss as they filed down the wood-panelled corridor behind the Speaker’s Chair and said: ‘So that’s what to do. Let’s stay in touch on the WhatsApp’.

Later that evening, Ms Leadsom resigned as Commons Leader. It was the final plunge of the knife from the now notorious ‘pizza club’. The Mail on Sunday first revealed in November the cell of pro-Leave Cabinet Ministers which met in secret to try to stop Mrs May from diluting Brexit. Over boxes of takeaway pizzas, the group, which also included Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling and Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt, would debate how to steer Mrs May towards a ‘purer’ Brexit – and whether to pull the plug on her premiership by resigning in concert. They even had their own WhatsApp group.

Until last week, they had largely pulled their punches, with the only resignation from a group member coming when Dominic Raab quit as Brexit Secretary.

But on Wednesday the mood was different. As the group sipped cups of tea and coffee, Ms Leadsom made clear her anger over Mrs May’s disastrous speech the previous day in which she had raised the prospect of holding a second referendum – an idea which was anathema to Brexiteer Ms Leadsom.

She told the group that the speech went further than what had been agreed in Cabinet and said she felt her position was untenable – although she stopped short of asking the others to follow her lead.

Ms Truss was also ‘spitting’, said sources: ‘The PM has reached the end of the road.’

Mr Gove made it clear that he thought Mrs May should abandon plans to make a final attempt to win Commons support for her Brexit deal. Mr Cox repeated the argument he had made in Tuesday’s Cabinet that the deal should never be put to a second referendum.

His views went down well in the room, but angered pro-Remain Ministers, with one saying: ‘This is the man who helped to push the PM towards striking a cross-party deal with Labour, which led us inevitably down the path to a “confirmatory” vote – and the man whose legal advice on the backstop helped to kill it.’

After Ms Leadsom’s resignation, and with backbenchers now in open mutiny, the Prime Minister realised the game was finally up, and started writing her resignation speech with her favoured adviser Keelan Carr.

It was as she prepared for the famous black door of No 10 to swing open to deliver her speech to the waiting media on Friday morning that Mrs May first broke into tears. Her appearance at the podium was delayed while aides helped her to recover her composure.

However, there was some joy for Mrs May’s team on the emotional morning. Since she had already made her decision to go, when Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the powerful 1922 Committee of backbenchers, paid a visit to Downing Street, it was no longer the expected showdown to demand her head. But it unexpectedly ended with Sir Graham losing his job as well.

Among the PM’s core team – including husband Philip, media adviser Robbie Gibb, chief of staff Gavin Barwell and party chairman Brandon Lewis – there had been suspicions that Sir Graham was ‘a little more devious’, according to a source, than his straight bat public persona. So when he signalled he could himself

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