Unless Moggsy has the backing of 158 CON MPs for his oust TMay move this threat is all piss and wind
A confidence move could make her position stronger
This week is going to be all about the crunch cabinet meeting on Friday at Chequers when TMay is hoping to get agreement on Britain’s approach to Brexit.
So we can expect a lot of sabre rattling like that above from Moggsy and threats of resignations and moves to oust her.
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The problem is that we’ve been here before. Those opposesed to the TMay approach have been briefing about resignations and ousting her for months and haven’t done anything. I’d suggest they’ve cried “wolf” too often.
One of the great rules of politics is don’t make a threat without going through with it if your conditions are not met. If you do you just lose credibility.
One of the challenges that the TMay ousters have is that any move under the rules of the party could end up strengthening her position. We all know that 48 MPs have to send a letter to 1922 Chair, Brady, for a confidence ballot to take place.
That would trigger a secret ballot the following day when the numbers start to get more challenging – for to be certain of getting rid of her a majority of the 318 CON MPs would have to back it. So we are talking about 159 votes against. That is too big an ask.
The sting in the tale is that if Mrs.May survived such a ballot there could be no follow-up move for a year. This would make her stronger.
So far punters think that she’ll survive with next year being the favourite on Betfair for her departure.