The post you are reporting:
Matthew Parris writing in the Times.
This is a huge gamble for Theresa May’s hardline Brexit critics, and they are by no means assured of success. It has taken them a long time to achieve the 48 letters necessary for a leadership challenge, and if they have struggled to reach 48 they will struggle to reach the overall majority of Tory MPs that would force her to resign. Among Tory MPs there will be three types of immediate response to this morning’s news. The first is that this is a terrible time for a leadership election. The argument that it is damaging, disruptive, even “unpatriotic” to start this fight now, so close to Britain’s departure from the EU, when the government has still been unable to find agreement on the terms, is very, very strong. “Not now, for God’s sake” will be the conclusion drawn throughout Westminster today.
The second response – and it will come from many – is that there is nothing to lose any longer. Mrs May and her administration are boxed in, paralysed – in a sense we no longer have a prime minister anyway – so why carry on with her at the helm? This will be felt with some passion, but those who feel it are the usual suspects, and until this morning they had not amounted to more than 48.
The third – and this view may have some purchase right across the party – is that this is a terrible time for a contest, but now it has been called the decision facing the Tory party is actually whether they want May as prime minister until at least Christmas 2019. The rules prohibit a second leadership challenge within twelve months of this, the first one.
That third view – not that MPs want her out now, but that it’s now or “never” – will be strong among many. And the prime minister does have a way of answering it. She could undertake now to quit as soon as Britain has left the EU. This would satisfy those MPs who believe she is not the person to steer us through the “implementation” period during which the final shape of our new relationship with the EU is determined.
Is it in her nature to promise to quit, but not yet? I somehow doubt it. Her pride is strong and her remaining time as PM would be spent as a lame duck leader, humiliated, on death row. Her statement outside Downing Street seemed to confirm my expectation that she will be defiant and face her critics down. We should not assume that a narrow win would be fatal to her, because she is not a quitter. A majority of one would suffice for the Theresa May we have come to know. But of course she would be weakened by a narrow win, and her MPs know it. On balance, therefore, I would expect her to win, if not comfortably then at least plausibly. But what a mess. What a terrible picture the Conservative Party is painting of itself, before the electorate. I more and more wonder how long the Tories can keep their show on the road.