It’s only 107 days away, by the way.
Theresa May is facing a vote of no confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party tonight.
First, a brief reiteration of the rules as they stand: to survive, Theresa May simply needs a bare majority of Conservative MPs to vote confidence in her – that’s 158 MPs. There are no other candidates at this stage: it’s just a ballot paper asking Conservative MPs if they have confidence in her. If she loses, it triggers a full-blown contest in which she cannot be a candidate. If she wins, she is immune to further challenges for a year – so if May survives tonight’s vote, she is safe in post until 12 December 2019.
In 1990, Margaret Thatcher stood down despite winning the first ballot – but back then the rules were completely different. Leadership challenges were triggered by MPs challenging the leader, and candidates needed to command both an absolute majority of MPs and a lead of more than 15 per cent over their challenger, in that case Michael Heseltine, in order to avoid a full leadership challenge in which others, not just the challenger, could stand.
