Tories tell Theresa May ‘you’ve got 10 days to save your job’ as support for under-fire PM crumbles after Grenfell Tower response and claims of MP plots
Despite PM promising more help for victims of tragedy - up to a dozen MPs allegedly ready to demand vote of no confidence
THERESA May has been given just 10 days to “shape up” and save her job as Prime Minister by Tory MPs.
It was reported last night support for her is falling inside the party – and now constituency chiefs are said to be pressuring ministers to force her out of Downing Street.
Up to a dozen MPs are ready to demand a vote of no confidence in Mrs May by submitting letters to the backbench 1922 committee, according to .
The news came as the PM admitted her response to the Grenfell Tower disaster was “not good enough”.
The embattled premier was stung into offering more help after hearing pleas from victims at Number 10 yesterday.
But by tomorrow the number of MPs ready to stick the knife into her is expected to grow as they return from the constituencies to Westminster.
And even those in her own Cabinet are set to have let it be known she will be ousted if she is in danger of losing the vote on the Queen’s speech this week.
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Tory sources told the paper there was a mood to “do an IDS” on her - meaning a vote of no confidence like that experienced by Iain Duncan Smith in 2003.
MPs have warned there had been a collective collapse of trust in Mrs May’s leadership, with a cabinet minister allegedly telling friends he was “worried about her state of mind”.
Another minister close to May said: “She had better stop feeling sorry for herself, pull up her socks and start to lead — and if she can’t do that she should go. Shape up or ship out.”
Tory backbencher Heidi Allen told The Sunday Times that the country wanted a “leader and a party that will carry us through this most turbulent of periods but care about the little man”.
“We have to change, and if we don’t, we deserve to die,” she added.
Former Brexit minister David Jones, who was sacked in Mrs May’s reshuffle, warned the PM not to row back on the exit strategy taking Britain out of the EU, telling the newspaper it would be a “betrayal of trust”.
There are also reports that some in her party are threatening a “stalking horse” scenario – whereby a candidate is put up against the PM in a plot to get rid of her before another rival takes over.
It is being likened to Sir Anthony Meyer’s 1989 challenge against Margaret Thatcher, according to the .
An influential former minister told the newspaper: “What we would do is to put up a candidate to run against her, a stalking horse. You can imagine who would do it.”
Referring to the Meyer and Thatcher situation, they added: “Of course Meyer had no chance at all, but she lost support and she was gone.”
Both Boris Johnson and David Davis are said to be lining up leadership bids, however allies of both are accusing each other of “going on manoeuvres”.
There is also rumours a Remain-backer could be lined up to replace her, such as Home Secretary Amber Rudd, after pro-EU MPs claim there is now a majority in Parliament for a softer Brexit
But Mrs May’s deputy Damian Green called the criticism of her Grenfell Tower response “terribly unfair.”
Her closes Cabinet ally said last night; “She’s distraught by what happened. She has the same degree of sympathy and horror at these events we all have."