Theresa May must quit or we’ll force her out, vows Iain Duncan Smith after Tory election poll disaster
A fresh poll of Tory members showed 8 in 10 want her gone now
THERESA May must resign or the party will force her out, Iain Duncan Smith has vowed.
The former Tory leader said she had to reveal when she was going to step down or else MPs would force her hand.
After last week's terrible election results for the Tories, which saw them lose more than 1,300 seats, Mr Duncan Smith said she was now a "caretaker prime minister".
He told LBC: "We have to make a change.
"The [1922] committee has to sit again now, urgently, and decide that either the prime minister sets the immediate date for departure or, I’m afraid, [we] must do it for her.
"This is the only way – we have in a sense a caretaker prime minister at the moment. I think, therefore, that making fundamental decisions about where we go with [Brexit] would be a big mistake."
His words came as a fresh poll of Tory members showed eight in ten want her gone now too.
82 per cent of Tories in a survey for ConservativeHome said they wanted her to fire the starting gun officially on a leadership contest now.
Tory MP Henry Smith said today: "For the sake of our country Theresa May must go as Prime Minister and MPs must deliver the Brexit people voted for, without further delay."
And yesterday former 1922 secretary Mark Pritchard said: "[it’s] time for 1922 to have a bloody difficult conversation with [the] prime minister — or risk PM Corbyn."
The 1922 bosses are set to tell the PM this week she must set out a date for her departure or MPs will change the party rules to allow a fresh vote of no confidence.
At the moment she can't face another one until the end of the year after she won a challenge last December.
One MP said: "Brady will give the prime minister one more chance to set out her departure timetable but he will leave her in no doubt that if she refuses then the rules will have to be changed and that there are already enough MPs to force her out of office."
On Friday a former councillor interrupted Mrs May as she gave a speech in Wales, saying: "Why don't you resign? We don't want you."
But Mrs May has today begged Jeremy Corbyn to do a soft Brexit deal with her to get an agreement over the line.
She told him in an article: "Let's do a deal."
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Newspapers reported a deal was on the cards in the coming days and could involve significant concessions to Labour on sticking to EU rules and workers' rights.
The PM has insisted nothing can bind the hands of whoever takes over from her, but Labour want to make sure someone else can't come and rip it all up later.
New International Development Secretary Rory Stewart said earlier it would "be more sustainable" to get a Labour deal and stop Brexit "being turned on its head" if the PM sealed an agreement to last decades.
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