Now ministers start the race to replace May
‘Eviscerating colleagues’
THERESA May effectively fired the starting gun on the race to succeed her last night by vowing to step aside before the next election.
Ministers yesterday lined up to heap praise on the Prime Minister in public, but were accused of secretly plotting their campaigns to replace her.
Although she fudged the question of whether she would lead the party in the event of a snap poll in the next 12 months, Mrs May vowed that she would not be Tory leader by the time of the next scheduled general election in 2022.
The pledge risks exposing her to the charge of being a lame duck prime minister and is likely to intensify the jockeying among potential leadership contenders during the remainder of her term in office.
She had previously declared that she would lead the party in 2022, despite last year’s failed campaign that wiped out the Tory majority.
At a meeting of the 1922 committee, she said she would not be leader by the time of a general election in 2022 but declined to answer whether she would fight an election if it was held before then.
Mrs May is expected to face renewed calls to specify when she will go after more than a third of Tory MPs did not support her in last night’s confidence vote. A hardline Brexiteer source said ‘she now needs to seriously think about whether she can govern’.
Within a couple of hours of the announcement of the confidence vote yesterday, every member of the Cabinet pledged loyalty in a flurry of supportive tweets.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid, widely expected to run if there is a contest, said: ‘The last thing our country needs right now is a Conservative leadership election.’ International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt, also tipped as a possible contender, posted: ‘The Prime Minister has my full support.’
And Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, another said to be preparing a leadership bid, tweeted: ‘I am backing Theresa May tonight. Being PM is the most difficult job imaginable right now.’
However, Tory backbencher Johnny Mercer last night claimed that some ministers criticising the attempt to oust Mrs May were privately canvassing support.
The MP for Plymouth Moor View said they were ‘simultaneously phoning round for support’ at the same time as they were ‘eviscerating colleagues’ who wanted the Prime Minister to go.
Several of those said to be positioning for the Tory crown have begun to make thinlyveiled pitches for the job.
Yesterday, interviews with both Boris Johnson and Mr Javid appeared in the Torysupporting Spectator magazine. Under party rules, contenders are whittled down by MPs, with the final two going to a ballot of the Conservatives’ 100,000 members.
A poll of Tory councillors for the Mail suggests Mr Javid is the early favourite with the Tory faithful, with Mr Hunt in second place. Mr Johnson was well down the field.