May endured a bruising day yesterday with open revolt within the Tories as she prepares to bring back the Withdrawal Agreement Bill to the Commons.
The biggest blow came as Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom quit the Cabinet over the Prime Minister's Brexit plan.
Leadsom resigned with a "heavy heart", saying she no longer believes the Government's approach will deliver on the referendum result to leave the European Union.
She urged the PM to “make the right decisions in the interests of the country, this Government and our party”.
It comes as both the Tories and Labour face a drubbing in todays EU election – which has seen voters surge towards Nigel Farages new Brexit Party.
The PM is expected to meet with Tory grandee Sir Graham Brady tomorrow at the 1922 Committee, where is she expected to be told to jump before she is pushed.
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“I do now urge you to make the right decisions in the interests of the country, this Government and our party”
Andrea Leadsom
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt insisted May will still be Prime Minister when President Donald Trump visits in June.
In response to a question following a speech at the National Cyber Security Centre, he said: "Theresa May will be Prime Minister to welcome him and rightly so."
When asked what he would discuss with Mrs May at a meeting this afternoon, Mr Hunt said: "All discussions between Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister should remain confidential and I'm not going to change that this morning."
And Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt, a Brexiteer, told reporters on Thursday: "I have given my advice to Number 10 and today I am going to be getting on with my job which is to keep the country safe and look after our armed forces."
TEARY: Theresa May heads back to Downing Street after a bruising day in Westminster (Pic: LNP)
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said "I want her to give a timetable for when she will go" and added if she won't quit there will be "overwhelming pressure" to for the 1922 committee to oust her as PM.
He said: "I think this blank denial from Number 10 today may be a smokescreen because she does not want to influence the outcome of the European elections. Maybe she will still quit tomorrow."
Bexleyheath and Crayford MP Sir David Evennett also demanded Mrs May's resignation, tweeting: "Theresa May must now resign. We need a new PM a new Cabinet and a new approach to Brexit."
Tory sources have been quoted as saying the PM has “run out of road" – and another added: "She deserved one last roll of the dice. But she took those dice and threw them off the table".
Ex-Tory leader Ian Duncan Smith said: "The sofa is up against the door. She's not leaving.
"She is like a female version of Gordon Brown, needing to be got rid of but locked in the bunker and refusing to go."
ALLY: Jeremy Hunt has insisted that Theresa May will stay on as PM (Pic: EPA)
And May's former joint chief of staff Nick Timothy added: "It is a sorry ending to the career of a dutiful and earnest public servant."
Meanwhile, Brexit hardliner Jacob Rees-Mogg warned his party must "wake up" to the groundswell of support seen by the fledgling Brexit Party – for which his sister, Annunziata Rees-Mogg, is a candidate in the East Midlands.
He added: "Voters are completely fed up with politicians stitching things up in a back room. They are particularly fed up with politicians who can't even stitch things up competently."
Andrea Jenkyns, the first of Mrs May's 36 ministerial resignations over , quoted revolutionary leader Oliver Cromwell in an article for the Telegraph.
"Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go"
STARTING GUN: Andrea Leadsom resigned as leader of the Commons with murmurs of a bid to be PM (Pic: PA)
The PM, writing in reply, disagreed with Leadsoms assessment in her resignation, but said she was sorry to lose someone of Mrs Leadsom's "passion, drive and sincerity".
"I do not agree with you that the deal which we have negotiated with the European Union means that the United Kingdom will not become a sovereign country," Mrs May said.
She went on to say she agreed a second referendum would be divisive, but said the Government was not proposing to hold one.
Mrs Leadsom acknowledged her resignation came on the eve of the European elections, but said she felt she could not announce the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) in Thursday's Business Statement containing "new elements that I fundamentally oppose".
Listing her reasons for resigning, Mrs Leadsom said she did not believe that the UK will be "truly sovereign" through the deal proposed, and said a second referendum would be "dangerously divisive".
She added that there had been "such a breakdown of government processes" that recent Brexit-related legislative proposals have not been "properly scrutinised or approved by Cabinet members".
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DRUBBING: Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party is expected to decimate the Tories (Pic: REUTERS)
Mrs Leadsom was one of a number of Brexit-supporting colleagues in the so-called Pizza Club who were absent for the start of Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday.
The Brexiteer told reporters it had been a "really tough day" but she still found time for social media pleasantries with her former special advisers and Labour MP Jess Phillips.
After she said she had "liked" Mrs Leadsom and praised her work on Commons complaints and proxy voting, the Tory replied "like you too Jess".
In a dramatic night in Westminster, her resignation came as pressure mounted on Mrs May to quit as the backlash over her last-ditch effort to get a Brexit deal through heightened.
May has previously agreed to set out the timetable for the contest to replace her after a crunch vote on her Brexit deal, widely expected on June 7.
That deadline appears to have been brought forward with the announcement she will meet Sir Graham, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, the day after polling day for the European elections, which are expected to be disastrous for the Conservatives.
WHO'S NEXT?: Downing Street's resident cat Larry may welcome his third PM (Pic: REUTERS)
Sir Graham told reporters: "I will be meeting with the Prime Minister on Friday following her campaigning in the European elections tomorrow Read More – Source
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