PM says she thinks there are too few MPs pushing for a change of leader to trigger contest

Theresa May has said that, as far as she knows, there are not yet enough Conservative MPs moving against her to spark a leadership contest and that replacing her would not help deliver Brexit.

The prime minister is facing open calls from Brexiter MPs for her resignation after she released a much-criticised draft agreement for leaving the EU.

After a week of turmoil, in which her government lost two cabinet ministers and several junior ministers, members of the pro-leave European Research Group have claimed Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, will by this week have received enough letters to launch a Tory party leadership contest.

Speaking on Sophy Ridge on Sunday on Sky News, May said she had spoken to Brady at the end of last week and to her knowledge the 48-letter threshold to spark a no-confidence vote in her leadership had not yet been reached.

She said internal critics thinking of replacing her as Conservative leader should think again: “It is not going to make the [Brexit] negotiations any easier and it won’t change the parliamentary arithmetic.”

Asked by Ridge whether she had considered stepping down, May said: “No, I haven’t. Of course it has been a tough week. Actually these negotiations have been tough right from the start, but they were always going to get even more difficult right toward the end when we are coming to that conclusion.”

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May said the next seven days would be critical, and that she would be travelling to Brussels to talk to figures including Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president. “I will be going back to Brussels. I will be in touch with other leaders as well, because the summit next week – and it is next week – this special European council, will be among the European leaders,” she said.

May said Dominic Raab, the former Brexit secretary who resigned and claimed the UK could not step away from the Irish “backstop” without the EU’s permission, was wrong.

“We can have debates in Westminster about whether this is the perfect Brexit from this viewpoint or from another viewpoint. What is important is that we deliver it,” she said.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that the former Tory London mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith and the veteran Brexiter Sir Bill Cash had written to Brady, bringing the running total of MPs declared to have expressed no confidence in the prime minister to 25.

Quick guide How would the Tories trigger a leadership contest? Show Hide No-confidence proceedings Forty-eight Conservative MPs would need to back a no-confidence vote in Theresa May to trigger a leadership contest, according to party rules. There are two ways a contest can be triggered, most obviously if the leader of the party resigns. If they do not, 15% of Conservative MPs must write to the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories. With the party’s current crop of 317 MPs, 48 would be needed. After David Cameron announced his resignation, five Tory MPs stood for the leadership. Unlike Labour party rules, under which candidates go to a ballot of members as long as they have the support of 15% of the party’s MPs, Conservative candidates are whittled down to a final two before party members have their say. The ballot is based on “one member, one vote”, but in 2016 one of the final two candidates, Andrea Leadsom, withdrew from the race after a damaging interview with the Times about the fact that May did not have children. Her withdrawal meant May was made party leader without having been elected by members.

The 585-page withdrawal agreement, which is due to be signed off at a special European summit next week, was published alongside a shorter document setting out plans for the UK and EU’s future relationship.

At present, there appears to be no parliamentary majority for the deal, which would have to be voted through before final approval. Opposition parties and the government’s partners in the Democratic Unionist party have said they will vote it down. Aides to some pro-Brexit cabinet ministers have hinted that they wish to change the agreement before it is signed off.

May said negotiations were still taking place to put more detail into the future deal proposals, saying it was this part that “delivers on the Brexit vote”.

Raab told the Sunday Times that the UK should not allow itself to be “bullied” and must be prepared to walk away from negotiations if necessary.

Brady declined to reveal on Sunday whether he was anywhere near the all-important threshold of 48 letters received. But he insisted that if that happened, Conservative party rules suggested a no-confidence vote would be dealt with quickly.

Speaking to John Pienaar on BBC 5 Live Brady said: “The whole thing is written with the intention that it should be an expeditious process. It ought to be a test of opinion very quickly, in order to clear the air and get it resolved.”

Brady said he had not told his wife, let alone fellow MPs, if he had received 48 letters and that some MPs had on some occasions falsely claimed to have sent letters.

Asked about his own views, and whether he would be submitting a letter to himself, he said it was not a sensible time to challenge the prime minister. “We are coming to the endgame of a very serious, very difficult negotiation, and for the government to be plunged into uncertainty would have implications for that.”

Meanwhile the DUP, whose MPs prop up May’s minority government, said the UK had to push for a better deal that did not put “a trade border down the Irish sea”. Nigel Dodds, the party’s leader in Westminster, said: “Even Jeremy Corbyn gets it, although nationalists and republicans here are desperate for him to stop saying it.”

The DUP clashed with business and farmer interests in Northern Ireland at the weekend over their Brexit position. The Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, which supports May’s Brexit plan, criticised DUP MP Emma Little-Pengelly, who claimed the deal would mean checks on food, fruit and flowers for supermarkets.



Aodhán Connolly, the director of the NIRC, accused her of spreading false information, saying the only checks would be on meat or livestock with other checks intelligence-led as they were included in anti-smuggling and anti-fraud controls.

