Theresa May MUST step down in June 2019 so a new leader can fight 2022 election, top Tories demand

PRESSURE is growing on Theresa May from Tory grandees to name June 2019 as the time she will step down as PM.

Senior party figures want her to spell out a timetable for her No10 departure at the Conservatives’ annual conference in October.

Declaring she will stay on in power until after Brexit – which takes place at midnight on March 30, 2019 – would strengthen Britain’s negotiating hand, they argue.

EU leaders would know they have no choice but to deal with Mrs May rather than waiting for any imminent successor.

But as soon as Brexit has happened, they want the PM to trigger a nine week Tory leadership contest.

Under the scenario – relayed to The Sun by three senior Tories independently of each other - Mrs May’s replacement would then take over to prepare for the next general election by 2022.

One senior Tory minister told The Sun: “We need the certainty of Theresa staying where she is until Brexit to stand a chance of getting a decent deal.

“But she has to make it known publicly that she’s going nowhere until then for the Europeans to believe it, and conference is the time to do that.

“Going at that point also means she can soak up all the toxicity over Brexit and the deal, such as signing a big cheque, so the new leader gets a clean sheet.”

One of the PM’s few remaining loyal supporters also pointed out that serving just short of three years in the nation’s top job would mean Mrs May beats Gordon Brown’s tenure.

The ex-Labour premier did two years and 10 months before being ousted in 2010 – making him the shortest serving PM since Sir Anthony Eden in 1955.

Before the general election, Mrs May insisted she would serve at least five more years in No10.

But since throwing away her majority, the PM has said nothing about her future publicly – only telling Tory MPs at a showdown meeting of the 1922 committee that she will carry on “for as long as you want me”.

Senior Tory backbencher Tim Loughton described Mrs May as on “rolling probation at the moment”.

But he also told BBC1’s Sunday Politics programme that the PM had won Tory MPs’ “relief and respect” for reasserting her authority in the Commons last week by passing the Queen’s Speech, adding: “The ship is steadier”.

Former education secretary Nicky Morgan last week said Mrs May should think about standing down in the autumn of 2018 to allow her successor to sell the Tories’ Brexit deal to voters.

Ms Morgan – who was sacked by the PM when she took charge of the nation a year ago next week – said: “Once that shape of Brexit is concluded, once those deals are very much on the table, the Conservative party must not miss the opportunity at that stage to think about who we want to be our future leader”.