Mrs May’s critics should be prepared to do more than merely wound her

The Prime Minister’s detractors fail to see that it is they who lack boldness and weaken the Tories

So much has happened in the meantime that it is hard to believe five years have passed since David Cameron made his fateful speech at the offices of Bloomberg in the City of London pledging a referendum on EU membership. On this day in 2013, we said in an editorial: “No one should doubt its importance both for domestic politics and for the UK’S foreign policy, which for 60 years has been based first on joining the EEC and then retaining a central role within it.”

The former prime minister (former because of the consequences of that speech) hoped to end the factionalism that had riven the Conservative Party for a quarter of a century and had undermined the authority of successive Tory leaders. John Major, in particular, had a torrid time both from critics of his European policy on the backbenches and from within the Cabinet – the bastards, as he called them. Things got so bad for Major that he decided to resign the leadership and called on his challengers to “put up or shut up”. Only John Redwood dared to come forward and he was trounced. The heir presumptive, Michael Portillo, sensibly backed away to prepare for a far more pleasant life travelling by train wearing colourful jackets.

Cameron had also hoped to end the argument in the country over Europe. “It is time to settle this European question in British politics.” But it has done no such thing. Even a referendum that gave a clear, if narrow, decision in favour of leaving failed to kill the beast. The debate now is not over whether to leave, but how – with Eurosceptics increasingly worried that the form of Brexit that is eventually agreed will look little different to what we have already.

However, because there is no Cabinet agreement on this central issue, Theresa May has found herself locked in a paralysis of indecision, alarming colleagues who at the end of last year were hailing her success in moving the Brexit talks on to the next stage. Here we are just three weeks into the new year and the mutterings about her leadership have started once more. The Tory MP Nick Boles tweeted recently that “there is a timidity and lack of ambition about Mrs May’s government which means it constantly disappoints. Time to raise your game, Prime Minister.”

Since Mr Boles is seen as an outrider for Michael Gove and played a key role in destroying Boris Johnson’s leadership ambitions, this has excited interest at Westminster. The veteran backbencher Sir Nicholas Soames has also joined the ranks of the disgruntled, calling the Prime Minister “dull, dull, dull” and urging Number 10 to adopt a “bold and brave” approach.

The problem is that we are not seeing anything bold and brave from Mrs May’s detractors, just timidity. If they really think she is not up to it, they should come out and say so directly. What we are witnessing is a leadership challenge by proxy. To say Mrs May lacks ambition and ideas draws attention towards someone who possesses both in abundance.

The Prime Minister found herself knocked off the front pages after meeting President Macron last week by an audacious proposal for a bridge to France. Yesterday, she chaired a Cabinet meeting where the main item for discussion had already been briefed out to the press – a demand for £100million a week more for the NHS. On both occasions, the minister stealing the PM’S thunder was Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary. He was rebuked by colleagues for parking his tanks of the Chancellor’s lawn, and Labour accused him of using the NHS to further his own political ambitions.

So what’s going on? Is this the start of a leadership challenge or not? We thought last autumn that Mr Johnson was preparing to leave the Cabinet over the direction being taken in the Brexit negotiations – but he stepped away from the brink. Before Christmas, he said Mrs May was doing “a fantastic job”, while Michael Gove hailed the Brexit breakthrough as a “significant personal achievement”. At a meeting of the Tory 1922 committee of backbenchers and peers, Mrs May was cheered to the rafters.

In paraphrasing her general election slogan, her premiership was caricatured as “weak and stable” – yes, she had no parliamentary majority but she could not be removed because the party was unable to agree on Brexit or who should be an alternative leader.

Mrs May has the most difficult task that any British prime minister has faced since the Second World War and few even in her own party think she possesses the requisite qualities of leadership. The past year has been strewn with calamities, both self-inflicted and unfortunate, from the general election debacle to the conference coughing fit. But if her colleagues think she is not up to snuff, one of them should lay down a challenge by resigning from the Cabinet and calling on MPS to deliver the 48 letters to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, needed to trigger a vote of no confidence.

That would be the honest and brave thing to do: hacking relentlessly away at the Prime Minister’s already diminished authority is neither. Doubtless, Mr Johnson is mindful of what happened to another blond former MP for Henley who walked out of a woman prime minister’s cabinet. In January 1986, Michael Heseltine left the top team of a leader in an infinitely more powerful position than Mrs May and found himself isolated as a result.

When his chance did come four years later, he failed to get the prized job, reflecting ruefully that “he who wields the knife never wears the crown”. The fear among the “big beasts” is that they would be outmanoeuvred again and a modernday John Major would come through the middle – a figure like Jeremy Hunt or Gavin Williamson. But at least Heseltine was bold enough to make a move. Constantly denigrating a prime minister facing immense challenges can only make her job harder and the Government’s position more difficult. Voters cannot abide a party fighting among itself because they then don’t trust it to run the country.

However, factionalism is a function of a lack of leadership and direction. If there is someone who thinks they can do it better, they have a duty to the party and to the country to step forward, not skulk in the background. Or, in the words of John Major, to put up or shut up.