Plot to oust May reveals party disunity

DIVISIONS over the future of British Prime Minister Theresa May burst into the open yest with a former chairman of her party saying 30 Conservative Party members of parliament backed a plot to topple her.

In one of the most bizarre British political speeches in memory, May’s address on Wednesday to her annual conference was ruined by coughing fits, a comedian handing her a bogus employment termination notice, and letters falling off slogans on the set behind her.

May’s authority was already diminished by her decision to call a snap election in June that lost her party its majority in parliament just days before the opening of Brexit talks with the European Union.

Under the headline: “Theresa May will stay as Prime Minister and get the job done,” interior minister Amber Rudd wrote in The Telegraph newspaper that “she should stay”.

May’s de facto deputy, Damian Green, also said she would carry on.

But the former party chairman, Grant Shapps, told BBC Radio 5 live that “she should call a leadership election”.

After May’s bungled election, her failure to unite the cabinet and a poor party conference, “the writing is on the wall”, he said.

Shapps, who chaired the party between 2012 and 2015, said up to 30 Conservative politicians backed the bid to tell May to go, including five former cabinet ministers.

He said it was unclear if there would be enough support to topple May and that the plot had been hatched before the party conference.

To trigger a formal leadership challenge, 48 Conservative politicians need to write to the chairman of the party’s so-called 1922 Committee.

Shapps said those seeking to topple May had no single candidate they wished to replace her with but that the group included both supporters and opponents of Brexit. — Reuters