An attempt to oust British Prime Minister Theresa May looked to be gathering momentum on Tuesday, a day after her decision to delay a vote in parliament on her Brexit deal for fear of a rout angered many in her Conservative Party.
With May on a tour of European capitals to try to secure “reassurances” to calm the crisis at home, the BBC and other media cited sources as saying the required number of letters calling for a no-confidence vote against her had been met.
There was little chance of getting confirmation of the leadership challenge – only one member of the Conservative Party knows how many lawmakers have submitted their letters – but her position looked more precarious than it has ever been.
With less than four months left until the United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on March 29, May’s premiership and her deal to stave off a disorderly departure from the European Union or a bid to stop Brexit are hanging by a thread.
Her removal — and it is not clear whether she would lose the vote of the whole party in parliament if the required number of letters had been received — could further complicate Brexit. One aide described the situation as “ominous” after the BBC cited multiple sources as saying the required 48 letters to trigger the vote of no confidence in May’s leadership had been reached.
The chairman of the Conservative Party’s so-called 1922 committee, Graham Brady, has asked to see May on Wednesday after her weekly question session in parliament, the BBC’s Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg wrote on Twitter.
Lawmaker Andrew Bridgen, a long-standing critic of May, said he believed “Conservative MPs (members of parliament) will vote whether they have confidence or not in a secret ballot at the first opportunity, which I think could be tomorrow night”.
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