At the end of a month that brought at least two “hell weeks” and even a “killing zone”, not only is Theresa May very much still alive, her aides are more confident than they have been for some time. A Downing Street that lives week-by-week on survival instinct has let itself look ahead: It believes the prime minister can stay in Number 10 after Brexit.

The conventional wisdom in Westminster has been that May will likely be removed by Conservative MPs after the UK leaves the EU in March 2019 — if she makes it that far. But the events of October, from the failure of her Brexiteer critics to move against her to this week’s well-received Budget, have convinced some of her top team that, against the odds, she will still be in place a year from now.

May’s chief advisers have long wanted her to stay on, refusing to accept she is just a caretaker PM and knowing they too will lose the biggest jobs of their careers if she goes. Now the first signs are emerging of how she might do that, both allies and enemies of the prime minister told BuzzFeed News.

Senior Tories this week discussed an April reshuffle to reward those Brexiteers who stuck with May, and keep ambitious plotters onside. “If there is a big enough reshuffle, she will stay,” predicted one veteran Tory MP. A prominent Tory Brexiteer and longtime critic agreed it was “very likely” May would not be ousted after Brexit.

The return of the language of tackling Britain’s “burning injustices” — first used by May when she became PM — at Conservative party conference, and again at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, is being viewed by colleagues as a sign May plans to put forward a domestic agenda that keeps her in power for years. “That conference speech was about her staying on until 2022,” said one MP.