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Theresa May hints she will quit before next election in bid to win no-confidence vote
Theresa May, British Prime Minister
Downing Street has raised the prospect of Theresa May resigning before the next election, as she desperately tries to save her job ahead of a vote of no confidence.
The prime minister’s spokesman said she did not regard the vote tonight as deciding who is going to lead the party into the next election, but about who takes the country through Brexit.
The key argument her critics have used against her remaining as leader, is that many of her MPs do not want her to lead the Conservatives into the next election.
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The move came after a confident performance by Ms May at prime minister’s questions in the commons, which her husband Philip watched from the public gallery.
She was to follow the session with multiple meetings with MPs and then a critical group meeting with the backbench 1922 Committee of Conservatives ahead of the ballot.
Her spokesman said Ms May “doesn’t believe the vote today is about who leads the party to the next election.
Brexit
“It’s about whether it’s sensible to change leader at this point in [Brexit] negotiations.”
The spokesman would not be drawn on how long the PM might serve and steered journalists away from the idea that she would name an exact departure date.
But the words suggest Ms May could tell MPs in the meetings that she is willing to stand down before the next election, if they allow her to complete the Brexit negotiations and take the country out of the EU on March 29.
A series of her critics have argued that while their colleagues like the prime minister, they do not want her to take the country into another election after the disastrous campaign of 2017 – and have used this as way of persuading fellow Tories to oppose her in the vote of no confidence.
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