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No change to Theresa May’s plan to stay as Prime Minister until Brexit deal passed, Downing Street confirms

Theresa May will not quit as Prime Minister until the Brexit deal is passed by MPs, Downing Street confirmed today amid growing pressure for her to step down.

The Prime Minister told her MPs in March she would resign as party leader once phase one of the Brexit negotiations are completed, leaving her successor to thrash out a trade deal with the EU.

Last week’s disastrous local election results, which saw the Tories lose more than 1,300 councillors, has led to even more voices in the party calling for May to go sooner rather than later – with former leader Iain Duncan Smith saying if she did not resign she would be forced out.

MPs tried to force May out last December in a no confidence vote, but her survival meant she was safe from another challenge for 12 another months – although some party members want to see the rules changed. 

Sir Graham Brady, the Conservative MP who chairs the backbench 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers, visited May in Downing Street on Tuesday to urge her to set out a clear timetable of her departure.

Asked about when May plans to quit, a Downing Street spokesman said: “The Prime Minister made a very generous and bold offer to the 1922 Committee a few weeks ago that she would see through phase 1 of the Brexit process and she would leave and open it up for new leadership for phase 2 and that is the timetable she is working towards. She wants to get Brexit done.”

May’s future was raised in Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday afternoon, with Brexit-backing Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns telling her party leader she had “failed to deliver on her promises”.

“Sadly the public no longer trust her to run the Brexit negotiations,” Jenkyns said, adding: “Isn’t it time to step aside and let someone new lead our party, our country and the negotiations.”

May replied: “This is not an issue about me…if it were an issue about me and how I vote we would have already have left the European Union.”

The government and Labour are set to resume cross-party talks on breaking the Brexit stalemate at 6pm on Wednesday evening.

Talks on Tuesday ended in yet another stalemate, despite rumours over the weekend the government were prepared to offer a compromise of keeping the UK in the EU’s customs union until the next general election in a bid to secure Labour backing for the withdrawal agreement.

Speaking after the talks ended, Shadow Business Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey played down any suggestions of a breakthrough, saying: “The Government needs to move on its red lines and we expect to make compromises, but without a government that's willing to compromise it's difficult to see how any agreement can be reached.”

Sterling slumped 0.5% against the dollar in reaction to the continuing stalemate.