THE immediate threat to Theresa May’s premiership has been lifted but Tory colleagues have asked for a “clear roadmap,” setting out her departure from office.
With a head of steam building up, particularly from the Brexiteer faction, the executive of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee met for a second day running in the Commons to hear arguments for and against changing the rules on ousting a leader.
In December, the Prime Minister saw off a bid to remove her by a margin of 200 to 117 in a vote of Tory MPs. Under party rules, this meant she could not be challenged for another 12 months.
However, critics of her handling of Brexit have called for the grace period to be reduced to six months, which would allow for a second confidence vote to take place in June.
Yet the officers of the committee finally came down against changing the party's rules.
After the meeting, the 1922 Chairman Sir Graham Brady said he believed the issue had now been settled for the foreseeable future.
While he said the committee had rejected calls for a rule change, the Cheshire MP pointed out it was always open to colleagues to write to him as Chairman to raise concerns, including ones about the party leadership and that the “strength of opinion would be communicated by me to the leader of the party should they decide to do so”.
Sir Graham further explained that the 1922 had decided, following Mrs May’s decision a few weeks ago to set out a clear schedule for departure as leader of the party in the event of the Withdrawal Agreement being passed, to seek similar clarity from her should this not happen.
“The 1922 executive is asking on behalf of the Conservative Party in Parliament that we should have a clear roadmap forward," he added.
As on Brexit, the party is divided over how long Mrs May should stay on for.
Former Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans, a member of the 1922 executive, has publicly called for the PM to go "as soon as possible".
But Matt Hancock, the UK Health Secretary, argued: "Changing the PM will not change what we need to do to deliver Brexit; we should get on and deliver Brexit…”
Richard Harrington, the former Business Minister who quit over the prospect of a no-deal Brexit, agreed, saying a leadership election now would be "disastrous" for the party.
One senior Tory at the 1922 meeting described how a succession of MPs called for an end to "squabbling" during the ongoing campaign for the local elections in England on May 2.
Many Conservatives fear their party will suffer heavy losses at this poll and also in the May 23 European elections - should they take place - with Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party being the main beneficiary of the Tories’ slide.
One noted: “The end of May could see the end of May.”
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