LISTEN 'She's not the leader we need' - Tory MP says Theresa May should quit
2 min read
A Conservative MP has broken ranks to openly call for Theresa May to resign as Prime Minister.
Heidi Allen, who has just been re-elected as the MP for South Cambridgeshire, said Mrs May was “not the leader [the Conservatives] need” and gave her six months before she would have to quit.
Another Tory MP, Anna Soubry, said Mrs May had to “consider her position” – but stopped short of explicitly urging her to resign after the Tories lost their overall majority.
Mrs May today confirmed her intention to remain Prime Minister by relying on the support of the DUP.
Most Tory MPs have targeted their criticism at Mrs May’s chiefs of staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, while downplaying the threat to the Prime Minister herself.
But Ms Allen said the Conservatives should seek a delay in the Brexit negotiations so they could choose a new leader.
“If the leader picks people who advises them so badly and cannot see that they are being advised so badly, then that tells me I’m afraid that that is not the leader that we need,” she told LBC Radio.
“The difficulty is that if this were any other election in any other time in our history then you could say ‘yes, the Prime Minister needs to stand down’.
“But this is different because we are about to start negotiating Brexit. So for me that puts an entirely different complexion on matters and we do need a Prime Minister at the moment. I don’t believe personally that Theresa May will remain as our Prime Minister indefinitely. In my view it may well just be a period of transition.”
She said the amount of time Mrs May could remain in place relied on whether the European Union would give the UK a delay on Brexit negotiations, but added: “It depends very much on how those conversations will go, but certainly I don’t see any more than six months.”
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