Backbenchers fear party establishment is trying to coerce MPs into backing the Home Secretary

The Home Secretary is the only person who can unite not just the Conservatives but the whole of Britain

THERESA MAY has been accused of using the Government machine to strong arm Conservative MPs into voting for her to become prime minister.

The Home Seretary will set out her case to replace David Cameron in a major speech tomorrow morning.

She is expected to say that she is the leader for “difficult times” as Britain enters the two-year period to negotiate its exit from the European Union.

An ally of Mrs May said: “Her pitch will be about stability and competence. These are difficult times, we need someone who can cope with difficult times. She will make a positive push, it will range beyond home affairs and talk about her values.

“She will highlight the need for opportunity and life chances. The Conservative Party needs to deliver for the whole of society, not just the prosperous.”

A new poll of more than 1,300 readers of the Conservativehome website put Mrs May narrowly ahead of her arch rival Boris Johnson by 29 per cent to 28 per cent.

Nominations for the leadership of the Conservative party open at 6pm today and close at midday tomorrow.

The Home Secretary’s campaign has already run into controversy as Tory MPs complained about an apparently coordinated drive by the whips to get her installed as party leader.

One Tory MP said he had been collared by his whip earlier this week while he was voting to ask if he was voting for Mrs May.

He said: “In breach of Conservative party rules they are ringing around the new intake saying ‘you must vote for this candidate’.

“It is clear that the whole of the establishment is backing Theresa May – she is the continuity Cameron cronies’ candidate.” Concerns about an officially sanctioned “stop Boris” plot have been raised because Gavin Williamson, Mr Cameron’s Parliamentary Private Seceretary, has been actively campaigning for Mrs May.

Nadhim Zahawi, who is backing Mr Johnson, told The Daily Telegraph: “I have no problem with whips campaigning for any candidate but it would be completely wrong and an abuse of process to do that while they are holding the position of whips.”

Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee of backbench Tories, said he had submitted a formal complaint to Mark Harper, the Chief Whip.

Westminster sources said that five Government whips – Mel Stride, Simon Kirby, Guy Opperman, Gavin Barwell and Julian Smith – had attended a meeting of Remain MPs on Monday. Mr Harper could be challenged about the row at a meeting of the party’s MPs this evening to rubber stamp the leadership rules, which were approved with one change by the party’s board.

According to the Conservativehome poll, it is currently “neck and neck” between Mrs May and Mr Johnson.

Paul Goodman, the website’s editor, said that out of 1,315 votes cast, Mrs May led Mr Johnson “by a mere 10 votes” putting “May the Remainer a sliver ahead of Boris the Leaver”.

MPs, party officials and members agreed at the meeting on Tuesday to extend voting from September 2 to September 9 to allow more time for hustings involving party members.

The early ending of voting is thought to make it easier for the next Tory leader to call an election for November.

However it is understood that both Mrs May and Mr Johnson are both poised to rule out that option.

One MP close to Mr Johnson said: “There is no need for an election because he is so well known.”

There was a blow for Mrs May’s hopes when more than 100 MPs attended a meeting of anti-EU supporters on Monday night.

The meeting was chaired by Steve Baker, who set up the Conservatives for Britain group. To cheers, he is understood to have said: “We have not come so far, only to elect a leader who did not campaign to leave the EU.”

Mrs May kept a low profile during the campaign, and is likely to pitch herself as a unifying force. She made only a handful of interventions – notably a speech in which she declared herself a reluctant Remain supporter.

Sir Alan Duncan, the former Tory minister who flirted with the Vote Leave campaign before coming out for Remain, has said it was wrong to assume the new leader had to be a supporter of Brexit.

He said: “If you just look through the lens of this referendum that is behind us, that will actually narrow the way in which we look at ourselves. What we need is unity, stability, credibility and competence. Someone has got to be good on domestic and foreign policy and be able to stand on the domestic stage with dignity and effectiveness.”

‘Her pitch will be about stability and competence. We need someone who can cope with difficult times’

Yesterday, I became a fully paidup member of the Conservative Party. Having prevaricated for years, due to some notion of retaining journalistic objectivity, I decided that the time for action had come. Although I fear I may be too late.

Yesterday’s announcement of an accelerated timetable to determine the next Tory leader and, ergo, Britain’s next prime minister, means we should know by the beginning of September who our new leader will be. My money’s on Theresa May and I’m not alone: the bookies now make her the favourite to win.

Surprising? Hardly. The country is in turmoil. Some of us aren’t sure whether we made the right decision last week. Chest-beating and division are the order of the day. Navigating the Conservative Party’s internal strife, complex European diplomatic negotiations and keeping the UK together means we need someone steely at the helm. Enter Mrs May.

The first thing she’ll have to do is sort out the Tories. David Cameron’s backed away, George Osborne isn’t sure whether he’s coming or going, Boris Johnson alternates between playing cricket and playing statesman, and the rest of them don’t know which way to turn. Having played a blinder during the referendum campaign – officially for Remain, but “of course Britain could cope outside the European Union” – Mrs May is perfectly placed to unite the warring Tory tribes.

When it comes to Brexit negotiations, meanwhile, who better than the Home Secretary? No one ever quite knows what she’s thinking. Mr Cameron once spent an hour with her trying to get her to say which way she was going to vote in the referendum, but came away still guessing. The best poker players have nothing on Theresa – she has no “tells,” nothing to betray her feelings or thoughts. There are Sphinxes who give more away.

Mrs May is also renowned for getting what she wants. “She’s got her way on the vast majority of reforms she wanted to enact,” says a senior police source, with bruised admiration.

Is the fact that she’s a woman a reason to vote for her? Yes. It means she’s had to work harder and be better to get to where she is. She has climbed to the top of a Tory party still largely run by public schoolboys. She was the first woman to serve as Conservative chairman, the second as Home Secretary – and unlike the first, Labour’s Jacqui Smith, hasn’t had to resign in disgrace from a department that helps political careers the way rocks help ships.

Yes, Mrs May works a good shoe (a lady who loves a bit of leopard-print is one after my own heart), but she doesn’t flirt or use feminine wiles to get her way. And unlike some successful women (including even Mrs Thatcher), she actually helps others of her sex: she co-founded Women2Win in 2006 to increase the number of Conservative women in parliament. And she definitely deserves snaps for refusing an honorary membership of the Carlton Club, because it doesn’t admit women.

She’s been married to the same man since 1980 (morally sound: check), doesn’t have any children (could be a turn-off for some but it does mean she’s less likely to be distracted on the job). She cooks a new recipe every week and goes to church every Sunday: she knows there’s more to life than Westminster.

There are some areas that need work. Her inscrutability means she can come across as cold. Boris might not be everyone’s cup of tea – some Tory MPs see him more as a jar of Marmite – but he pumps hands, slaps backs and makes people laugh. Mrs May is in no danger of being mistaken for a stand-up comedian.

But these are serious times: who wants to have a joker in charge? The premiership is the biggest job in the land, with a workload to match. Mrs May is incredibly hardworking – she’s regularly up until after midnight, reading every Home Office paper in forensic detail. If Dave was the essay crisis PM, Theresa will be the head girl premier, homework always done to A* standard, and in immaculate handwriting, too.

The clichés abound – a safe pair of hands, good in a crisis – but isn’t that what we want right now? Contemplating the future that lies ahead, I certainly do. If the boys at Conservative HQ will let me, she’ll have my vote.