Brexit Shambles: Housing minister Malthouse backs Theresa May

Housing minister Kit Malthouse appears to be backing Theresa May as Brexit chaos consumes the government.

A request from Estate Agent Today to the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government to find out Malthouse’s precise views on the proposed Brexit deal went unanswered.

However Malthouse himself gave a hint as to his thoughts when he took to social media to retweet two Twitter messages backing the Prime Minister.

One retweet was of a message from a special adviser to the Cabinet who wrote: “I say to my [Conservative] party colleagues, now is not the time for a vote of confidence and the Prime Minister needs to be backed. A confidence vote and coup will anger the public and make us look incapable of leading, and we’ll pay the price. Which we deserve.”

Malthouse’s second retweet was of a message by another Conservative MP, Nick Boles. His tweet said: “I don’t think I have even a tenth of the grit and resilience of the woman who is our Prime Minister. I will keep on developing Plan B because I think we may need it. But I take my hat off to Theresa May.”

Malthouse made no direct reference to the Brexit deal or to Theresa May himself yesterday; his predecessor as housing minister, Dominic Raab, was the first major resignation from Cabinet yesterday, when he said he could not support the deal which he assisted to negotiate and which he backed the previous day at a special Cabinet meeting.

Meanwhile Emoov’s founder and chief executive Russell Quirk - himself no stranger to difficult situations as his agency is still seeking a buyer - gave some light relief on Twitter yesterday.

As there was a spate of junior and Cabinet resignations, Quirk tweeted: “If the Housing Minister were to quit today, no one would notice.”