You know we’re in a crisis because the Today Programme, on BBC Radio 4, was extended by 15 minutes this morning – it’s not long enough to get any clarity, because there is no clarity to be had. It was merely enough to signal the extremity of the situation by mucking up the schedule.
Forty-eight letters have gone in to Graham Brady, which means a motion of no confidence in Theresa May has been brought from her own party. This can only be called once, but should not be confused with a no-confidence motion brought by the opposition, which can happen as many times as it likes. It’s unlikely that May will lose the vote this evening.
May apparently had lunch with David Cameron shortly before the rebels last threatened her in mid-November and asked how many votes you need to win a no-confidence motion by. He replied, “one”. Then she would be safe from her own rebels for a year.
In reality, though, that was just Cameron being his usual shallow, blinkingly uncomprehending self: even if three-quarters of her own party back her – 236 MPs – that’s still only 36% of the house. It’s impossible to imagine a minority government, with so little support, being able to do anything, so her deal would be set in aspic: there’s no scope to renegotiate it, no chance of getting it through. She could resign, but there’s another real possibility: a pivot towards a second referendum.
Why has a confidence vote happened?
A total of 48 Conservative MPs – representing 15% of the parliamentary party – have backed a confidence vote in Theresa May in an attempt to trigger a leadership contest.
When will the confidence vote take place?
Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories, has confirmed the vote will take place on Wednesday evening between 6pm and 8pm in a House of Commons committee room. A result is expected shortly afterwards.
How many MPs would need to vote against May to oust her?
A simple majority is required – the figure is 158 MPs. However, it is widely believed that May would be under intense pressure to resign if the were a significant number of no-confidence votes, even if she wins.
The exact number is anybody’s guess but over 100 votes against the prime minister would be undeniably a bad result given that ministers will be expected to vote for her. Should May defeat her critics, they would not be permitted to challenge her for another year.
What happens if May loses?
She will have to tender her resignation as leader of the Conservative party, and ultimately as prime minister.
An open contest for the Conservative leadership would then follow, although May cannot take part. Tory MPs then whittle down the number of candidates over a matter of days to two – who face the party’s estimated 120,000 membership in a vote. After a three week ballot a new prime minister would be expected to take over in January.
A change of Conservative leader and prime minister would not automatically lead to a general election, although the Labour party could respond through a vote of no confidence.
What are the motives of the 48 Tory dissenters? They either think they have a genuine chance of deposing her outright, because they are crazy (least likely); or they’re hoping to have badgered her so much that she’ll just step down (medium likely); or they’re trying to cause so much chaos that no deal becomes inexorable, as nobody can agree on anything (most likely).
Why hasn’t the opposition called the no-confidence motion? It is much closer than the swivel-eyes to getting 50% plus one. The calculation so far has been that it’s not close enough; Labour has been biding its time until it can certainly bring her down.
The SNP and the Green party have been pressuring them to bring this no confidence motion – technically, any smaller party could do it, but in practice, the Speaker wouldn’t give them the time. So they’re asking Labour to do what they can’t, but also, mischievously, to expose the divisions in Labour’s position, which are these: September’s party conference laid out its position – Labour wants a general election or, failing that, a second referendum with remain on the ballot. If it brings a no-confidence motion, and loses, it then has to unite behind a second vote, and it would be implausible and impolitic for the party to back anything but remain at that point. So Labour leavers want to delay any no-confidence vote as long as possible and turn this into Waiting for Godot.
Labour remainers in heavily leave constituencies want to keep open the Labour-negotiated-Brexit fantasy, which disintegrates as soon as we move towards a second vote (it just wouldn’t be possible to fight a second referendum on a pro-Brexit, anti-Tory-Brexit ticket – the reason it’s a fantasy, by the way, is that there’s no appetite for it in the EU). Labour remainers, which is a bloc of the parliamentary party but almost the whole of the membership, are reaching the end of their patience.
Over an even more than usually hysterical house, Jeremy Corbyn played prime minister’s questions perfectly today: there was only one real question, which I’ll paraphrase, since there was a lot of parliamentary language (“wahaheeeey!”): you’ve been to Brussels, you’re back with your deal, tell us what’s changed, and give us a vote on it.
May is curiously immune to the pressure of language, and replied with an attack on Corbyn that was both irrelevant to the matter and sounded so close to the observable actions of her own government (“all he wants to do is to create chaos in our economy, damage, division in our society and damage to our economy”) that anyone not used to her might have been disorientated. Corbyn’s point stood: we need the vote on the deal – we need every decisive moment to happen, so the nation can move on.
Labour’s original line has held well: the more it does nothing, the more the Tory party implodes. But this is exactly the moment to snap out of it. There’s a good chance, if the party reached out to Tory rebels, that it would win a no-confidence vote. Not to call one looks affectless and expedient. It’s one thing not to interrupt your enemy while she’s making a mistake, but when your enemy’s mistake is to set fire to a village you also live in, it’s time to interrupt her.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
