How could Theresa May be deposed?

A number of Conservative MPs have argued that Theresa May should be replaced as prime minister amid the Brexit chaos, and although denials were issued on Sunday, cabinet ministers are widely reported to be unhappy with her leadership. But how could she be removed?

Is there a formal way for Conservative MPs to oust the PM?

Not until 12 December there isn’t. It was on this date last year that May won a confidence vote, triggered by Tory MPs writing letters to express their wish for her to go, by 200 votes to 117. Under party rules she has a year’s grace before a similar challenge can be launched.

So is she definitely in No 10 until then?

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Absolutely not – and almost no one expects her to stay as PM for another nine months. The extent of the disquiet, especially public calls for her to go by even senior backbenchers, for example her former policy chief George Freeman, makes her position extremely difficult.

Is May about to be replaced by David Lidington or Michael Gove?

Seemingly no – or at least not yet. The Sunday papers carried lurid reports of supposed cabinet plots to replace May with a caretaker prime minister, and both her de facto deputy and the environment secretary were mentioned as being in the frame. But on Sunday both insisted they did not want this to happen.

How could May be ousted, if that is what Tory MPs want?

The main tool would be political pressure. For example, if May alienated even more of her colleagues, for example by pushing openly for a no-deal Brexit, then hypothetically a series of more remain-minded cabinet ministers could resign en masse, fatally damaging the government. It has also been mooted that Conservative MPs could hold an informal “indicative vote”, which, if it made clear she had barely any support, would make May’s position untenable.

What other routes could bring about her downfall?

Labour has already tried a formal motion of no confidence in May’s government after the first, crushing defeat of her Brexit plan in January. This was lost by 325 votes to 306, but it is possible some Conservative MPs could switch sides in a new vote if they were desperate to remove the PM.

The risk of this would be that if the no-confidence vote was passed, and if no new government can be formed in a fixed 14-day period afterwards, then this triggers a general election, which many MPs would not want, and would necessitate a new and longer delay to Brexit.