After Theresa May

SIR – Professor Vernon Bogdanor is right to suggest that an election before Christmas is unlikely (Comment, October 22), but not because the Prime Minister is safe. On the contrary, his analysis ignores two vital points.

First, it is possible to pass a motion that demonstrates no confidence in the Prime Minister – for example, by rejecting the Brexit strategy, which would force her resignation – without triggering the 2013 Fixedterm Parliaments Act, whose 14-day timetable only begins after a specifically worded motion of no confidence.

Secondly, under Schedule 2 of the Conservative Party constitution, the resignation of the leader of the party requires the 1922 Committee to hold a leadership election “as soon as reasonably practicable”. In the words of the Court of Appeal (Toeca National Resources, 2013), this wording means that the factual matrix – including the likely practical consequence of the course of action – must be considered.

Given the critical state of the Brexit negotiations, as Professor Bogdanor himself explains, a likely consequence of a leadership election at this point would be a national disaster. The 1922 Committee would therefore be bound to defer a party leadership election, at least for the short period while a Brexit treaty was being resolved.

Adding to this “factual matrix” is the hung Parliament. The choice of PM depends not on who leads the Tories but on who can command a majority in the Commons. All the more reason for Tory MPS, in consultation with the DUP, to settle on who they propose should succeed Mrs May. This new administration must then survive a no-confidence vote in the House.

Leaving the outcome in the hands of MPS in this way would be short and swift, and it would also reflect the spirit of internal rule changes that all sections of the Conservatives’ constitutional college backed in 2005 by a 61 per cent majority, only just short of the 66 per cent needed for them to come into force. Nick St Aubyn

Dunsfold, Surrey