Yahoo News Should she stay or should she go? Yahoo users divided on Theresa May leadership contest
It’s not just Tory MPs that are split over the upcoming vote to oust Theresa May – but Yahoo users, too.
Thousands of people have took part in our poll which asks whether they agree with the leadership contest or not.
And, much like Brexit, people are currently nearly evenly split.
Some 45% of people taking part in the poll believe the Prime Minister should go, compared with 44% who believe she should stay – with the remainder sitting on the fence.
While it’s currently unclear just how much support Mrs May will muster in tonight’s crucial vote, an even split of Tory MPs would have Downing Street very nervous – just one vote either way would swing the result.
Mrs May herself brushed off calls for her resignation, as she vowed to fight an effort to oust her as Conservative leader and Prime Minister ‘with everything I’ve got’.
In a dramatic early morning statement outside the door to 10 Downing Street, Mrs May warned a change of Prime Minister would put the UK’s future at risk and could delay or halt Brexit.
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She needs to secure the votes of 158 Tory MPs – half the parliamentary party plus one – in a ballot on Wednesday evening to remain as party leader.
Failure to reach this figure would trigger a leadership contest in which she could not stand.
Immediate statements of loyalty for the Prime Minister were issued by every MP in Cabinet, including several who have been touted as possible successors.
By the time of PMQs at noon, the number of Tory MPs tweeting their intention to vote for the PM had passed 130.
If Mrs May wins, another challenge cannot be mounted against her position as Tory leader for a year.
Questions have been raised over whether the PM was privately assuring colleagues she would step down once the Brexit process was over, after a senior Downing Street source told reporters that tonight’s vote was not about choosing a leader to take the party into the next election.
The source said: ‘This vote isn’t about who leads the party into the next election, it is about whether it makes sense to change leader at this point in the Brexit negotiation.’
He insisted he was ‘not aware’ of Mrs May floating a departure date in conversations with Cabinet ministers and backbench MPs, and declined to discuss whether she would stay on if she won the ballot by a slender margin.
Mrs May was buoyed by cheers from her own backbenches in a raucous House of Commons as she stood up for what could be her final session of Prime Minister’s Questions.
Husband Philip showed his support by watching from the public gallery, while Tory elder statesman Kenneth Clarke told MPs that a leadership contest within months of the March 29 date of Brexit would be ‘irresponsible and unhelpful’.
