Vegas-on-Thames. Both sides take huge risks in the timing of the challenge to Theresa May

The London Borough (or City) of Westminster is one of only seven local authority units in the capital to have no official twin towns overseas. On the evidence of the past few days, this is an omission that should be rectified swiftly and Las Vegas, Nevada is the obvious candidate for that status. The timing of the challenge to Theresa May involves huge risks both for the Prime Minister and those who have forced the vote, but also demands some careful calculation by those who see themselves as a potential successor to her whenever the moment of her departure comes. This is political poker.
The timing is not ideal from the point of view of the insurgents. It would have been better for them to have been able to muster the 48 letters they needed immediately after Mrs May had concluded the Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union because if they had deposed her then they could have prevented that text from ever being presented to Parliament. That they openly called for a ballot at that time but could not deliver the signatures made them look rather foolish. A repeat of that episode would have been fatal. The somewhat shambolic manner in which 10 Downing Street decided on Monday to pull its own legislation from the floor of the House of Commons after three whole days of debate on it afforded Mrs May’s opponents the second chance they needed to strike.
The calendar and the clock have proved decisive. Those who want to oust the Prime Minister had the advantage that they could choose when to make their final push for a vote. Her asset was that in effect she could then decide when the vote would be held. It was always likely to be her logical choice to call that ballot for the earliest possible moment so as to minimise the time that her foes had to organise opinion against her and not allow any waverers too long to have second thoughts. Once the 48th letter had been dispatched to Sir Graham Brady late yesterday, it would have been the assumption on all sides that Conservative MPs would be asked to reach a decision about their leader either today or tomorrow because both of these are sitting days for the House of Commons.
That timing has its disadvantages for those who want a new Prime Minister. Not only is there little space for them to mobilise support but Mrs May and her associates can, and have, argued that her overthrow less than 24 hours before the EU Council meeting tomorrow would effectively render it impossible for the UK to extract concessions of any sort which might make the Withdrawal Agreement more acceptable to the Conservative Party and a majority in the House of Commons. This is a strong argument for keeping her in place that could prove to be decisive later on tonight.
But if the anti-May faction had not moved now and waited until after the EU Council (which might well involve only token movement, if anything at all, from the EU-27) they would have faced a very serious difficulty. They could have forced a confidence vote in Mrs May and possibly won it if held on Tuesday next week but there would then be no time to start and to conclude the parliamentary part of the subsequent leadership election before the House of Commons enters the Christmas recess on 20 December.
If the Prime Minister is voted down tonight, a swift set of ballots for her replacement could be held next week, the two finalists would be identified and ballot papers sent to the 124,000 or so members of the Conservative Party in time for a new leader to be chosen by mid-January. That date is crucial because legally the Government has until 21 January 2019 to submit a motion as to what it intends to do if no Withdrawal Agreement has been accepted by the House of Commons, and thanks to an amendment embraced by the House last week (proposed by Dominic Grieve) the House now has the authority to alter any such motion. The strongest argument that the rebels will make to their colleagues today is, in effect, ‘if you want her to go sometime, now is the last and only chance to not only replace the leader but choose a different strategy for withdrawing from the EU.’
So, what happens under the three (yes, three) politically plausible scenarios that can now emerge?
The Prime Minister loses the vote
An outright defeat on a confidence vote would mean that Theresa May would instantly cease to be the leader of the Conservative Party and that an election for her successor would be triggered. She would not be permitted to stand in that contest. As previously noted it would be a rather rushed affair with a speedy series of ballots conducted among MPs to produce two names to be sent to the wider membership on the tightest timetable that the Returning Officer (Sir Graham Brady again) thought that he could achieve to ensure that a new Prime Minister emerged as soon as possible.
Mrs May would not strictly speaking cease to be the Prime Minister. She could and probably would continue as a de facto caretaker Prime Minister. David Cameron was actually the Prime Minister but not the leader of the Conservative Party for almost two days from 11 to 13 July 2016. It is just about conceivable that Mrs May either might not want to continue in such circumstances, or conclude that it was important that someone with some sort of authority continued the dialogue with the EU-27 in the month it might take to find the next First Lord of the Treasury, and so recommend to the Queen that a senior Cabinet minister who did not intend to throw their hat in the ring for the leadership act as interim Prime Minister instead. David Lidington, her de facto deputy, could be such an individual.
The Prime Minister wins by a convincing margin
What would be considered a convincing margin? This is obviously a matter that can be debated. The rules only require the incumbent leader to win by a single vote but political life is more complicated. There are a couple of benchmarks which could be relevant.
The first (most likely to be looked to by Mrs May’s allies) is the final parliamentary ballot of the 2016 leadership race when she secured 199 votes out of a possible 329 available and hence 60.5% endorsement. A number at or above that level could be deemed convincing. A second test, however, would be the 1995 battle which took place when John Major resigned and stood again for the Conservative Party leadership (but did not quit as Prime Minister) in a ‘put up or shut up’ move to his own (largely anti-EU) opponents. John Redwood emerged as the alternative contender. Mr Major obtained 218 votes or 66.3%. The leadership issue was considered settled even if internal harmony was not to be witnessed.
If Mrs May comes out of tonight with that level of backing or more then she will claim a convincing win. She would insist that she also has a mandate to go back to the EU-27 to find a means by which the vexed backstop could be detoxified and having done so would feel that she had the right to come back to the House of Commons in early January and attempt to enact the Withdrawal Agreement. This in turn would put the heat on the rebels to relent, especially if the Prime Minister were to send out the signal that once an orderly departure from the EU was implemented she would stand down.
What about a less than convincing margin then?
It obviously depends where on the spectrum the actual numbers fell. The figures 51% and 59% are very different politically. Margaret Thatcher won 54.8% of the votes of MPs in November 1990 but fell anyway. If she had made it to 55.8% she would have been the outright winner under the rules that applied then and would probably have barricaded herself inside No 10 and survived.
What a less than convincing margin would probably mean is that Mrs May remained in post for a few months but that power flowed from her to the Cabinet collectively. They would determine whether it was worth trying to push a rebranded version of the Withdrawal Agreement through the House (using the timing of her resignation as a bargaining chip whether she liked it or not) or to opt for a Plan B.
Tim Hames
Director General, BVCA