'i Will Fight It With Everything I've Got': Defiant Theresa May Vows To Contest Tonight's No-Confidence Vote And Will Learn Her Fate At 9pm After Tory Rebels Trigger Leadership Battle By Finally Getting 48 Letters From Mps dailymail.co.uk

Theresa May vowed to fight with 'everything I've got' today after a Tory no-confidence vote was dramatically triggered – and will be held within hours.

The PM said she would not give up after Eurosceptics secured the 48 letters from MPs needed to force a ballot that could end her time as leader.

In a defiant speech on the steps of Downing Street, she warned Brexit would need to be delayed beyond March 29 if she loses and Jeremy Corbyn might end up in power.

'I have devoted myself unsparingly since I became Prime Minister… and I stand ready to finish the job,' she said.

‘A change of leadership in the Conservative party now will put our country’s future at risk, and create uncertainty when we can least afford it.

‘The new leader wouldn’t have time to renegotiate a new Withdrawal Agreement and get the legislation through parliament by March 29, so one of their first acts would have to be extending or rescinding Article 50, delaying or even stopping Brexit when people want us to get on with it.’

Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the powerful 1922 committee, emerged this morning to announce the threshold of 48 letters had been 'exceeded' and Mrs May was eager to resolve the issue 'rapidly'.

He said the PM's reaction when he notified her last night had been 'business like' and she will deliver a make-or-break speech to MPs at 5pm before the ballot opens an hour later. The crucial result will be declared as soon as counting of the 315 votes finishes.

Cabinet ministers immediately rallied to try and shore up Mrs May, with Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Michael Gove, Amber Rudd, Penny Mordaunt and Brandon Lewis among those making clear they will be support her.

But as the Tories plunged into outright civil war, veteran MP Sir Bernard Jenkin declared that he will be voting to get Mrs May out.

Senior backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg said the premier's Brexit plan would 'bring down the government if carried forward' and the party 'will not tolerate it'.

'Conservatives must now answer whether they wish to draw ever closer to an election under Mrs May's leadership. In the national interest, she must go,' he said.

Mrs May – who has cancelled a planned visit to Ireland and a Cabinet meeting this afternoon – can stay on if she wins the confidence ballot by just one vote, and would theoretically be immune from challenge for another 12 months.

But in reality anything short of a handsome victory will make it almost impossible for her to cling on, with rebels saying she must go if she is opposed by more than 80 MPs.

Allies believe she would have romped home if a contest had been staged last month – but her position has weakened significantly since then.
Rebels were jubilant that they had finally secured the numbers last night after Cabinet minister Owen Paterson joined efforts to oust Mrs May in the wake of her humiliating decision to drop a Commons vote on her Brexit deal.

One senior Brexiteer told MailOnline Mr Paterson lining up with the rebels was a 'big moment' after the mutiny embarrassingly failed to gain traction before.

'We have had some false starts, but this looks like the green light,' they said.

Previously veteran Eurosceptics have appeared unwilling to sign up to an all-out revolt, despite deep unhappiness with Mrs May's Brexit plans.

The development risks throwing the government into turmoil just as Mrs May is scrambling to wring more concessions out of the EU.

She spent yesterday jetting between capitals, holding talks with Dutch PM Mark Rutte in The Hague, German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, and Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels.
Mrs May said she was cancelling her plan to travel to Ireland for talks with Leo Varadkar after PMQs this afternoon, and then go straight on to a crucial EU summit in the Belgian capital on Thursday and Friday.

She said: 'A leadership election would not change the fundamentals of the negotiation or the parliamentary arithmetic.

‘Weeks spent tearing ourselves apart will only create more division just when we should be standing together to serve our country. None of that would be in the national interest.