The point where enough is enough could arrive very soon for Mrs May

Tory grass roots are in uproar and MPs are in despair. The Prime Minister may not survive their wrath

Boris Johnson, despite a challenging time as Foreign Secretary, and failing to lie down in front of the Heathrow bulldozers, was clear favourite, and Sajid Javid, despite a chronic inability to decide whether he wants to stay in the European Union or not (something on which rank and file Tories have made up their minds), came second. He can console himself with Heseltine’s First Law of Tory Politics: that he who wields the knife seldom wears the crown. Michael Gove, the former bookies’ favourite, saw his ratings collapse because of deciding to back the so-called Chequers Agreement; as did other ministers whom the grass roots imagined were Brexiteers. Jacob Rees-Mogg continues to command support.

A health warning is necessary: Conservative Home’s readers are self-selecting, and not the same as either the parliamentary Tory party (which will choose two leadership candidates) or the grass roots members (who will choose between them). But this continued agitation reflects the Tory mood. MPs went on holiday in despair about the non-leadership of their party. Many were, and indeed still are, in their constituencies before heading for villas and gin palaces. While there they were assailed by activists and voters outraged at the betrayal explicit in the Chequers “deal”. As Priti Patel acknowledges today (in this paper and on telegraph.co.uk), they know it is untenable, and that probably Mrs May is too. They also know their chances of re-election, and of avoiding a Faragiste revolt, will be severely reduced if anything remotely like Chequers is to be the outcome of our EU negotiations.

It was ironic, therefore, that Mrs May should have interrupted her Italian holiday to drop in to the Fort de Brégançon, on the French Riviera, on Friday to try to schmooze President Macron into asking Brussels to tone down its hostility to Britain’s proposals. The prospects were not good, since Mrs May’s schmoozing abilities are equal to her legendary charisma and sense of humour.

Even if President Macron had volunteered to do this – which he emphatically did not, further weakening her – the Chequers agreement remains gall and wormwood to almost the entire Conservative party. She can send out the increasingly preposterous governor of the Bank of England, whose return to Canada is painfully overdue, all she likes to warn about the apocalypse that a non-Chequers Brexit must bring. But the country has spoken: we are getting out, and we are getting out properly. Therefore, Chequers just will not do.

It is the failure of Chequers – and not just with Tories – that raises questions about her future. Michel Barnier, who seems happier finally to destroy the EU than make even the slightest compromise that might shore up its tottering edifice, has already said he cannot allow a deal with Britain that ignores freedom of movement – and that is just one of his objections to Chequers. The EU increasingly resembles a semi-pluralist Soviet Union in its last days, but it is Mrs May’s misfortune to be dealing with a Brezhnev and not a Gorbachev.

It is hard to see how, if the European Commission rejects Chequers, Mrs May can retain the credibility to stay in office. She may try, of course, but that will only make it worse for her. M Barnier may demand more concessions: that, too, would sign her death warrant. Duped perhaps into thinking the Leftist press and the BBC

at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion represent true public opinion, he has little conception of the state of public anger with which he wants her to deal; she, sadly, has little conception of how to deal with it, because she hates and fears confrontation.

By having a confrontation – by telling M Barnier there is no possibility of a deal, and therefore we must simply trade with the EU on World Trade Organisation terms – she might yet preserve herself, at least for a few months. Europe, fearing the evaporation of much of its €80billion annual trade surplus with us, might be panicked into a change of tone. Ireland, whose economy would be savaged if their masters in Brussels ordered a hard border with the United Kingdom, might belatedly beg for a change of heart, along with German motor manufacturers and the French luxury goods industry. And Mrs May might at last do a passable impersonation of Mrs Thatcher, and tell these people we refuse to be bullied by them – which would postpone her party defenestrating her.

But none of that may happen. MPs no longer go home and rest in the summer. Email and social media are constantly throbbing. As a Tory MP told me last week, “there’s a lot going on under the radar”. The point where enough is enough may be reached very early in the new term. And, as one activist put it to me, what is she going to say in her party conference speech? She is unlikely to be rescued from banality a second year running by a hideous cough; another confirmation of her lack of vision, conviction, imagination and leadership ability will only bring the knives out. Her rivals are on manoeuvres; the touchpaper has been exposed; it will not take much to have someone light it.

‘What is she going to say in her party conference speech? Another confirmation of her lack of vision and leadership will only bring the knives out’