Cabinet panic as Tory HQ plans Christmas Election

THERESA MAY faces a Cabinet revolt if she attempts to call a snap General Election, say Tory MPs – amid claims that party chiefs are gearing up for a poll before Christmas.

With MPs reporting that the party’s canvassing activity in marginal seats has been ‘ramped up massively’ in recent weeks, one well-placed source at Tory HQ told The Mail on Sunday that a decision had been taken in Downing Street to call an Election if Mrs May’s Chequers deal was voted down by the Commons next month. It is thought that it would be a short campaign, concluding before the end of the year.

The source said: ‘They have no idea what will happen with the vote – or what the Prime Minister should do if she loses. The emergency plan is for Mrs May to go to the country immediately – before Boris Johnson or anyone else has a chance to challenge her – and ask voters to save the Chequers deal in the national interest.

‘Then she could win a big enough majority to push through a deal before Brexit Day in March.’

However one Tory MP said: ‘Word has reached the Cabinet and there would be a mass revolt if she attempted it.’

Last month, The Mail on Sunday revealed that allies of Mrs May were ‘war gaming’ the idea of an Election in order to break the Brexit deadlock in the Commons.

Their confidence was boosted by private polling, which appeared to show that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s appeal was waning among the young voters who form the bedrock of his support.

The idea has sent a shiver through Tory MPs still haunted by the Prime Minister’s catastrophic performance at the 2017 Election, which led to the elimination of the Conservative majority.

But Tory strategists calculate that at least one-fifth of the voters who backed Mr Corbyn at the last Election only did so as a protest vote, because they didn’t think he stood a realistic chance of entering Downing Street.

Among the seats being canvassed by Tory HQ are former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith’s marginal seat of Chingford and Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge seat, both of which are vulnerable to Mr Corbyn’s strong following in London. Last night, one of Mr Johnson’s supporters said: ‘What a terrible idea. She [Mrs May] is putting a gun in our mouth and threatening to pull the trigger.’