Prime Minister May is facing widespread backlash amongst her Tory MPs as dozens are calling for her to resign from her role as Prime Minister. An astonishing 82 percent of Tory MPs have voted for Mrs May to step down with hopes to start a new leadership election, according to a new poll by political blog Conservative Home. The figure jumped from 71 percent last month before rising to 79 percent later in April, another record number.
Just 16.1 percent of Tories said Mrs May should not step down, while 1.64 percent said they did not know.
A total of 1,460 Tory MPs took part in the poll and the results were announced today.
The survey was held after the Conservatives lost 1,334 seats in the local election last week – their worst result since 1995.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith called for Mrs May to resign or be forced out of office following the party’s devastating election losses.
He called Mrs May a “caretaker PM” and said her attempts to reach a Brexit deal in cross-party talks were “absurd”.
Mr Duncan Smith told the BBC: “As a result of the devastating election result, the PM has in effect become a caretaker.
“As such, she is not empowered to make any deal with the Labour Party which itself suffered a very similar result.
“Two discredited administrations making a discredited deal is not the answer to the electorate.”
Mr Duncan Smith insisted many Tory MPs would refuse to back a deal if cross-party talks are successful.
In an interview with LBC radio, he said: “We have to make a change. The [1922] committee has to sit again now, urgently, and decide that either the prime minister sets the immediate date for departure or, I’m afraid, [we] must do it for her.
“This is the only way – we have in a sense a caretaker prime minister at the moment. I think, therefore, that making fundamental decisions about where we go with [Brexit] would be a big mistake.”
Earlier this year, Mrs May survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament but pledged to step down if MPs agreed on her Brexit deal.
Other potential prime ministerial candidates include former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab and new International Development Secretary Rory Stewart.
Justice Secretary David Gauke said the losses were a “punishment” to the Tories for their handling of Brexit, which he insisted should be the party’s focus.
Mr Gauke told BBC Breakfast: “What we need to be doing is addressing the big issue in front of us, which is Brexit.
“We would have had a much better set of election results had we managed to get the Prime Minister’s meaningful vote through earlier this year and we left the European Union on March 29.
“I think we can look at those local election results as a punishment for both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party for failing to find a way through that situation.”
