May Leadership: 28 Letters Known; 48 Needed for a Challenge

Bloomberg

12 Dec 2018, 04:43 PM IST

(Bloomberg) -- At least 2 Conservative MPs have publicly said they’ve submitted letters of no confidence in U.K. PM Theresa May since the govt pulled the vote on the Brexit deal on Monday.

That brings the tally of known letters to 28, up from 22 in Nov. when it was last speculated that rebel Tories had reached the threshold of 48 letters that are needed to trigger a party leadership contest.

On Tuesday, the pound fell to its lowest since April 2017 before paring losses amid conflicting reports on whether the threshold had been breached. Only one person knew for sure: Graham Brady, the party official who receives the letters and needs to inform the prime minister when her job is indeed on the line. BBC and ITV report that Brady would be meeting May on Wednesday afternoon.

Here’s our list of letters:

Owen Paterson (Dec. 11)
Crispin Blunt (Dec. 11)
Andrew Lewer
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Mark Francois
John Whittingdale
Steve Baker
Henry Smith
Simon Clarke
Anne Marie Morris
Lee Rowley
Sheryll Murray
Martin Vickers
Adam Holloway
Ben Bradley
Maria Caulfield
Chris Green
Marcus Fysh
Zac Goldsmith
Bill Cash
Nadine Dorries
Laurence Robertson
Andrew Bridgen
Andrea Jenkyns
Peter Bone
Philip Davies
James Duddridge
Philip Hollobone
NOTE: These letters can be withdrawn once submitted
NOTE: The 1922 Committee is formed of rank-and-file conservatives and it has the power to call a no-confidence vote on May’s leadership; it requires a threshold of 48 votes to call a contest
NOTE: Bloomberg News doesn’t have a firm count of number of letters submitted
NOTE: Theresa May’s Possible Confidence Votes: A Traders’ Guide

To contact the reporters on this story: Katerina Petroff in Frankfurt at kpetroff@bloomberg.net;Anna Molin in Stockholm at amolin3@bloomberg.net;Daniel Zuidijk in London at dzuidijk@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Christopher Kingdon at ckingdon@bloomberg.net, Katerina Petroff