Tory turmoil: Will Theresa May survive or choose to press eject herself?
No 10 has picked a fight it thinks it will win - but the rebels calculate the PM may just choose to go, writes Faisal Islam.
Friday 6 October 2017 17:19, UK
By leaking the name of Grant Shapps as ringleader of the MPs agitating for the PM to go, Downing Street has taken a calculated risk.
It could yet backfire.
The former Tory chairman was approached last week by a senior member of Downing Street staff, and confirmed to him that, since the election, he had held a list of MPs who felt that the failure of that election campaign had made the PM's position untenable.
Number 10's suspicion had been that Shapps would use the Sunday before conference to release the list to destabilise the PM, but he says that it was not his plan to interrupt conference.
Instead, calculating that there are not the numbers to get to the 1922 Committee threshold of 48 MPs, Downing Street has decided to flush out the plotters.
Indeed plotters might be a little strong a description.
It has existed since June, and Shapps admits it was pretty much "my initiative" and that he is the "holder" of the list.
It is not a formal 1922 letter, but an invitation for the PM to step down "gracefully".
He won't say how many MPs are on it, but doesn't deny the widespread suggestion of and former ministers such as Ed Vaizey.
He told Sky News that "one or two" serving Cabinet ministers privately support his plan, and that is consistent with private chats at the conference.
It is not a direct response to the PM's conference speech mishaps, though Shapps claims that number rose because of Cabinet divisions before the conference and that the Manchester meeting has increased numbers signing up.
Some MPs are informing the whips and the 1922 Committee at the same time.
"I'm surprised the whips think it's a good idea to publicise it - at least people now know where to come," he told me.
On the one hand Downing Street will be delighted to paint Shapps as the coup leader.
Otherwise sympathetic MPs describe the former minister as a "loner" and blame him for throwing 30 colleagues, then under police investigation, "under his Battlebus" - a reference to the controversy about allocation of expenses in the 2015 general election.
Nor is Downing Street fully in control of events, presuming incorrect signatories to the Shapps list, including former ministers who spent conference quietly supporting the PM, while struggling to control their rage at the Foreign Secretary.
Clearly top Brexiteers openly condemn this as a "Remainer plot", though Shapps says a top Leaver Tory MP is signed up, and that he is now pro Brexit.
Other Remainer Tory MPs say it was friends of Boris Johnson doing the ring-round on Wednesday afternoon, conscious of the fall in the Foreign Secretary's share price and making enquiries about Priti Patel.
So Downing Street has picked a fight it calculates it will win.
Cabinet ministers have been primed. Amber Rudd with a loyal article in the Telegraph.
One Cabinet minister telling me "she can and should stay on", another senior one saying "it's all the usual suspects so all calm this end".
One though responded to the events of last night with a "hmmmm".
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There are no good options for the party.
The fundamental problem is that it seems impossible to get the party to agree with a Brexit landing zone inside the likely negotiation landing zone of the rest of the European Union.
The specific point is that the EU is watching this, and the actions of her Foreign Secretary, and wondering: "Can she deliver what she offers?" at summits in Brussels in the next few weeks.
Also, Cabinet members can act with impunity. And so can backbenchers.
The whip cannot be taken away from MPs with names on the list without costing the Conservative majority.
Now it is out in the open, will Shapps and his band feel enfranchised to rebel on key legislation? It only takes seven.
For MPs this is now about a 72-hour period to establish a judgement about which course of action is the very worst.
Conference appears to have put paid to any notion that the PM will fight the next election.
Her team is now daring her MPs to calculate that continuing as things are represents the least worst option.
The problem is this: among the vast majority of MPs, even ministers contacted by us yesterday, there were plenty who, while professing public support, were wholly unhappy with the current state of affairs.
Perhaps Shapps is not the figure to crystallise such sentiment into action. But those MPs have now been given an eject button for their leader.
The stakes are now high. The PM should be able to survive this. The rebels calculate that she may just choose to press eject herself.