Theresa May to stay as PM for six months to kick off Brexit and stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming PM – but then she’s toast, vow Tory grandees

CONSERVATIVE grandees last night vowed to oust hapless Theresa May — but not for six months.

Party chiefs agree that the General Election disaster means she cannot survive.

But they also fear a bitter Tory leadership contest could end up making Jeremy Corbyn Prime Minister instead.

They will delay axing her for up to a year so the crucial Brexit negotiations can begin.

But as the General Election disaster left mortally wounded Mrs May’s authority in pieces, she will have to be ousted after Christmas.

One seething senior Tory MP described the PM as “f***ed, and deservedly” after a poor campaign meant her snap election gamble ended in failure.

Mrs May and her small team of advisers clung to power last night with the help of the Ulster unionist support.

Despite hopes of a vast majority, Thursday’s nationwide vote saw Mrs May lose 12 MPs leaving the 60 year-old Premier with just 318 seats, eight short of an overall majority of 326.

Sinn Fein’s refusal to take up their seven seats left her needing a working majority needed of 322 – with the DUP’s 10 MPs just taking the PM over the line, and hanging on to office like a thread.

The Westminster chaos sparked bookies to slash the odds on there being a second general election this year down to just 11/10.
On yet another day of extraordinary drama in Westminster;

• Ulster unionists from the DUP last night called on Mrs May end a ‘witch hunt’ against forces veterans in Northern Ireland as one of their demands to prop up her minority government,
• Scots Tory leader Ruth Davidson demanded Mrs May “listen to voters” to understand the election calamity,
• Leadership frenzy erupted among senior Tories yesterday for the second time in a year as jockeying began over who would succeed Theresa May,
• Furious Tory MPs blamed a disastrous failure to offer hope to hard up voters for Mrs May’s election disaster,
• The Pound plunged 2 cents against the dollar, but creating a FTSE rally with cheaper stocks to foreign investors.
• A total of eight government ministers lost their seats in the unexpected clean out, leaving the party in shock.

The only silver lining in the cloud was 12 Tory MP gains in Scotland, taking the Conservatives’ total there to 13.

Senior party figures said a new Tory leader would want to immediately go back to the country to try for a Commons majority.

But with hard left Mr Corbyn riding so high, a putsch and immediate new poll was deemed too much of a risk.

Labour finished just 2% behind the Tories in the popular vote share – winning 12,858,652 vote, or 40%, versus the Tories 13,650,900, or 42.4%.

The government facing a twin crisis of Brexit talks without a majority and the ongoing Islamist terror attacks also cooled plotting.

One minister told The Sun: “It is in no one’s interest to have either type of election now.

“The longer we govern the more momentum Corbyn loses, and the worse he looks back as Opposition Leader – which he’s crap at.

“But that will come, either towards the end of the of this year or next.”

Mrs May’s minority government was seen as unlikely to last more than a year, even with the DUP’s support, as every single Commons vote will be very tight and she will be held hostage by just five of her own MPs threatening to vote with the opposition.

This morning former Tory leader William Hague said there were “serious lessons to learn” from the election – but it wasn’t the time for a leadership battle.

He wrote in The Telegraph: “Voters do not want further months of uncertainty and upheaval. They want to see ministers getting on with the job, while acknowledging democracy and their constrained circumstances. And getting on with the job should mean starting the negotiations to leave the EU on schedule the week after next.”
And former minister Owen Paterson warned his party against the “chaos” of a leadership contest – as it could further delay resolving Brexit matters.

He said Theresa May was right “despite all the disappointments” to try to find a way to govern with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party given that the Tories won the most seats and most votes.

And he stressed that Brexit was the main priority for the government adding: “We want to get that resolved as rapidly as possible and to have the chaos and uncertainty of a leadership contest would put the whole issue on hold and I think that’s really bad for the stability, not least because of the whole economics looking ahead, with the pound dropping and everything else.”

Other ministers took a different view, still insisting the party should have acted to oust Mrs May immediately.

Another minister told The Sun: “She is going to limp on like a lame duck. We saw this all before with John major.

“We need to act fast and brutally now.”

As dawn broke yesterday morning, senior Cabinet ministers – including Boris Johnson and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox – initially refused to give Mrs May their backing.

Cryptically, the Foreign Secretary would only say that it was “early days” when asked if she should stay on.

With eyewitnesses saying she was “close to tears”, the PM delivered an emotional speech to party workers in CCHQ at 4.30am, where she promised them: “Things will change”.

The Sun has learned that she then made a series of early morning calls to key Cabinet ministers to gauge support for her.

Once she had won enough assurances, Mrs May then booked an appointment with the Queen in Buckingham Palace at 12.30pm – to ask the monarch for permission to form another government.

The PM then delivered a short speech to the nation on No10’s steps on her return, pledging to offer “a government that can lead Britain forward through this crucial time”.

Mrs May added: “What the country need more than ever is certainty”.

She also promised to redouble her efforts to crack down on Islamist extremism and put “fairness and opportunity at heart of everything we do”.

Ending her sombre statement with a fresh vow to carry out Brexit, the PM added: “That’s what we voted for last June. That’s what we will deliver.
Let’s get to work”.

Knives sharpest for Mrs May’s all-powerful two chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill – who were in charge of the campaign, and the badly manifesto offer.

Cabinet ministers also said last night thy would be emboldened by Mrs May’s calamity, and will answer back now and do their own thing.

After failing to express any remorse for the election shambles, the rocked PM was forced to apologise to the ousted 33 Conservatives MPs in total via TV clip last night.

Mrs May said: “I’m sorry for all those colleagues who lost their seats and did not deserve to lose”.

She added: “I will reflect on what we need to do in the future to take the party forward”.

But there remained a deafening silence from every cabinet minister yesterday, as none took to the TV screens to defend Mrs May all day in her hours of need.

Imploding since it secured Brexit, UKIP was on the verge of collapse last night after it haemorrhaged 85% of its vote from 2015 – pushing the party from 3.9 million supporters down to just 593,000.

Despite losing the election, Labour were still jubilant last night after competent campaigner Mr Corbyn outdid all expectations.

A Labour spokesman said: “Theresa May claims nothing has changed, but the clear message from the electorate is that everything has changed.

Instead of burying her head in the sand, May needs to listen to what the people of Britain are saying.

“The British people have not given her the landslide she wanted and many predicted, and Labour will not stand by and let her impose policies that do not have public support or legitimacy.”