Confidence vote: majority of Tory MPs publicly back May

In the hours since the announcement that a Conservative leadership contest had been triggered, 160 Tory MPs have declared their support for Theresa May on Twitter. That would put her past the 158 of 315 MPs she needs to survive – although, because the ballot is secret, there is no way to know how many of them are telling the truth.

Forty-eight letters against her were required to trigger the contest and at least four MPs have publicly said they would not support her in the vote.

May’s most implacable opponents within the party will frame any number of votes against her above 80 as cause to consider her position. But the prime minister’s camp has been briefing that a simple majority would be enough to renew her mandate as leader.

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On Thursday afternoon it was reported that two suspended MPs had had the whip restored in advance of the vote – prompting speculation that the party’s private numbers were falling short of the public declarations of support.

Charlie Elphicke was suspended over alleged sexual offences, which he denies, while Andrew Griffiths was suspended for sending 2,000 sexually explicit texts to two much younger women over the course of three weeks.

Every MP in the Cabinet has issued a message of support for the Prime Minister, along with senior Tories on the back benches.

But some backbenchers questioned the reliability of those claims given the way the vote works. Brexiteer Andrea Jenkyns, who submitted one of the letters calling for a no confidence vote, told BBC Radio 4’s World At One: “What they say publicly is different to what they do because it’s a secret ballot.

“I have had people who I know very well - friends and colleagues - who have said ‘publicly they will say this’, but it has come to the stage where we need a new leader.”

She claimed there were “about six” ministers who had told her they would vote Mrs May out.