Prime Minister Theresa May could announce her departure date in a matter of days, according to media reports.
The Times is reporting that Mrs May could announce her resignation after her meeting with chairman of the influential backbench 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady on Friday.
Mrs May has been coming under mounting pressure to resign after she announced that she would allow the Remain-dominated House of Commons to vote on a second referendum when her EU-approved Withdrawal Agreement Bill goes back to the legislature for a fourth vote at the beginning of next month.
An ally of the prime minister told the newspaper of record: “She thought she had a duty to have one last go [at attempting to pass her withdrawal treaty] but if that’s not going to be possible then she’s out of road.”
The vote had been provisionally planned for Friday 7th of May, but reports indicate it has not been scheduled — perhaps as a result of numerous Tory MPs who reluctantly backed Mrs May’s deal last time having announced they will now vote against it, and the Leader of the House of Commons resigning from Cabinet because she did not wish to put it forward.
MPs and ministers had been appealing to Mrs May to remove new wording letting MPs decide whether an exit treaty should be subject to a “confirmatory vote” by the public, with one senior Conservative telling the Financial Times: “She’s not playing by the rules any more. It is incredible how she just avoided the Cabinet acting against her by just not meeting them.”
Last night, the executive of the 1922 Committee met to discuss changing party rules to allow them to call another confidence vote in the prime minister before December 2019, with a source telling The Guardian that the executive held a secret ballot, placing their votes in sealed envelopes intending to open them on Friday should Mrs May fail to tell Sir Graham that she will be stepping down by June 10th.
Andrea Leadsom resigned Wednesday night as Leader of the House of Commons — the 36th minister to resign under May’s premiership over Brexit — with further ministerial resignations anticipated if she does not confirm a departure date.
Brexiteer MPs will be stepping up pressure on the PM to resign from Monday if she does not make the announcement before the weekend and after the results of the European Parliament elections are known.
Parliament will soon be in limbo as the House rises on Thursday for the Whitsun recess, with MPs not returning until June 4th — with the fourth vote on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill scheduled to take place on the 7th, while U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit is due to take place between the 3rd and the 5th of June.
However, Mrs May is likely to resist as she has done in previous leadership challenges. Media reported last night she declined meetings with a number of senior ministers whilst she held crisis talks with her inner circle in Downing Street.
Former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith joked that the prime minister had practically barricaded herself in Number 10, telling ITV News: “The sofa is up against the door, she’s not leaving.”
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who will meet with Mrs May today to discuss his own opposition to the withdrawal treaty, said on Thursday morning he does not expect the prime minister to resign this weekend, saying he expects her to still be leader during President Trump’s visit.
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