Zombie Theresa May stumbles through confidence vote, by Hugo Gye.

THERESA May will limp on in Number 10 after winning the confidence vote despite a THIRD of her own MPs wanting to sack her.

The PM won the support of 200 Tory MPs, enough to stay in post, but with 117 MPs calling for her to go her time in charge seems to be running out. …

Top Brexiteers including Jacob Rees-Mogg called for her to resign immediately over the “terrible result” while Labour claimed she had been fatally wounded.

Rebel Tories called on the Cabinet to push Mrs May out by lining up to tell her she’s lost her authority.

The PM has already pledged to step down before the next election in 2022 – a vow she made today in a bid to win over more support. …

A source from the pro-Brexit European Research Group said: “The parliamentary arithmetic remains unchanged. We cannot and will not support the disastrous withdrawal agreement the Prime Minister has negotiated.” …

[Labour’s] Deputy leader Tom Watson added: “After 40 years tearing itself apart over Europe, tonight’s vote shows the Tory party is finally and irrevocably split in two.

“It is incapable of agreeing a Brexit deal and unfit to govern. There is no pathway back. We need an election.” …

Brexiteer Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt urged the PM to put rocket boosters under No Deal plans.

She said: “Now let’s crack on with getting the changes we need to the deal on offer and press on with No Deal preparations. We are leaving the EU in 15 weeks.”

Robert:

What a Clusterburach!

According to the Guardian, Scottish critics of Conservative Brexit policy have come up with a new word “Clusterburach” to describe what’s going on at Westminster.

It means complete shambles and is derived from combining clusterfuck and burach a Gaelic word meaning “mess”.

So we’ve got something positive from Brexit, I suppose, but complete shambles seems to describe where we are rather well.