MPS to tell May: name departure date or face a June 12 ejection

THERESA May will be told by her own MPS to name the date of her departure or face being ousted in June after the Conservative Party’s patience with her finally ran out.

Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, will tell the Prime Minister that the party is preparing to change its rules to make it easier to throw out unpopular leaders if they refuse to go. Backbenchers have already set June 12 as the date Mrs May will be forced out if she does not comply, exactly six months from the day she fought off the last attempt to depose her through a confidence vote in her leadership.

One MP summed up the mood in the party by saying Mrs May would be told that she cannot “Superglue herself to

Downing Street like the eco-warriors”. Tory MPS will return from their Easter break today with the anger of constituents still ringing in their ears, and facing a huge new threat from Nigel Farage’s increasingly popular Brexit Party.

Brexiteer Cabinet ministers will this morning tell Mrs May to put her Brexit deal to a parliamentary vote for a fourth time in a last-ditch attempt to avoid the European elections.

They want Mrs May to give MPS one final chance to agree a deal with Europe by May 22, the eve of the poll, or risk being punished by voters for delaying Brexit.

It comes as a new poll shows support for Boris Johnson as Mrs May’s replacement has surged among grassroots Tory members after Mrs May agreed to extend Article 50 until October 31.

A survey of 1,100 party members by the Conservative Home website found that 32 per cent of them want the former foreign secretary as prime minister, more than twice that of his nearest rival Dominic Raab on 15 per cent.

Support for Mr Johnson has risen by 10 percentage points since the survey was last carried out in March.

MPS have been left in no doubt during their 11-day Easter break that Conservative members and activists want Mrs May to quit for the sake of the party. One minister said yesterday: “The refrain we keep hearing on the doorsteps is ‘she has got to go’.”

Sir Graham will today chair a meeting of the executive of the 1922 Committee, where five out of six of its officers are expected to call on Mrs May to quit now.

The meeting is expected to agree that the minimum period between confidence votes in a leader should be cut from 12 months to six months, meaning Mrs May could be challenged on June 12.