Theresa May is set to chair a meeting of her top ministerial team as MPs return to Westminster following the Easter break.
The Prime Minister will convene her Cabinet on Tuesday morning while cross-party talks between the Government and the Labour Party will resume in a fresh bid to break the Brexit impasse.
Ministerial discussions are expected in the afternoon, with Mrs May’s de facto deputy David Lidington, Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay and chief whip Julian Smith representing the Government.
READ MORE: Andrew McKie: May's failure in office reaches far beyond Brexit
Elsewhere Change UK – the Independent Group will launch its European election campaign in Bristol, and Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party will unveil its latest tranche of candidates in London.
On Monday it emerged the PM could face an unprecedented vote of confidence in her leadership after 70 local Conservative association chiefs signed a petition in support of a poll.
They called for an extraordinary general meeting of the National Conservative Convention to discuss the Prime Minister’s leadership of the party, the Telegraph reported.
READ MORE: Think tank calls for House of Lords to be abolished after Brexit
A non-binding vote is expected to be held at the meeting, which would – if it showed a lack of confidence – put pressure on the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs to find a way of forcibly removing the PM from office.
Mrs May has come under heavy criticism for her handling of the Brexit process, but survived a vote of confidence by her MPs in December.
Under party rules a year has to pass before another vote can be called, but an extraordinary general meeting must be held if more than 65 local associations demand one through a petition, the paper said.
Elsewhere a new poll found former foreign secretary Boris Johnson is the favourite to replace Mrs May as Conservative leader among the party’s grassroots.
Almost a third of party members – 32.4% – backed the pro-Brexit Tory to take over the helm of the party, up by 10 points in the last month.
Ex-Brexit secretary Dominic Raab was second with 14.7%, according to the poll of 1,128 panel members by the Conservative Home website.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove, who also supported the Leave campaign, came third, ahead of Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Home Secretary Sajid Javid.
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 here