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Senior Tories are already plotting ways to oust Kemi Badenoch after the party’s disastrous local election results.
The prospect of the Tories having their fourth leader in less than four years appears to be on the cards with the party losing hundreds of council seats across England and being almost wiped out in traditionally strong areas for them.
The Independent has learnt that discussions were already underway before Thursday’s local elections to find a way to remove her.
Now senior Tories have told The Independent that they plan to press Robert Jenrick, who came second to Ms Badenoch, to challenge her.
Among the complaints against Ms Badenoch is a lack of vision and policies, a failure to score hits in Prime Minister’s Questions and a failure to properly confront the rising Reform.
Speculation about Mr Jenrick making a leadership push had been rife before the local elections after a recording of him emerging pronouncing on a plan to do a deal with Reform - a move opposed by Ms Badenoch.
Following that, a letter he sent to all candidates without her name on it also emerged.
One senior Tory told The Independent: “I am messaging Robert [Jenrick] to get his act together and make a bid to be leader. We cannot continue like this.”
One MP said: “It is now just a matter of timing. There is no way she can lead us int a general election.”
A former ally of Ms Badenoch’s added: “She just does not have it. We have a choice of replacing her with Robert or a lot of us switching to Reform.”
But an MP who had supported Mr Jenrick last year said: “We cannot just keep changing leaders. We have to give her time otherwise we will look stupid with voters.”
Also believed to be waiting in the wings is former home secretary and foreign secretary James Cleverly, who has kept a low profile.
While poor results had been expected because the Tories won a large number of seats the last time these same seats were contested, the scale of the defeat and losses to Reform has shattered party confidence.
In Durham, a county which the Tories once contested with Labour, the party took just one seat while Reform seized control with 65. In Lincolnshire, a safe Tory county, they were routed as Nigel Farage’s snatched control of the county council and former Tory MP-turned-Reform defector Dame Andrea Jenkyns won the mayoralty.
One moment of comfort came from Paul Bristow winning the race to be mayor of Peterborough and Lincolnshire but the party was almost wiped out in the council elections there.
Meanwhile, they also suffered severe losses in Kent, Devon and Shropshire.
Standing in the way of another coup is a need for 30 per cent of sitting MPs to trigger a vote of confidence in the leader.
But the party’s co-chairman Nigel Huddleston insisted that Ms Badenoch should not face a challenge.
"Kemi's position is certainly solid. She's only been leader for six months and she was out and about right across the country, and I can tell you this, everywhere we went, people wanted to see her more and hear more from her."
Pressed on his use of the word "solid", Mr Huddleston said: "I say that in a really positive way." She's very sensible, she's very honest, she's very straightforward. "She doesn't go around telling people what they want to hear. That's the easy route in politics."
Meanwhile, Ms Badenoch has tried to play down the electoral catastrophe as it loses hundreds of seats and faces the onward march of Reform.
In a statement she said: “These were always going to be a very difficult set of elections coming off the high of 2021, and our historic defeat last year - and so it’s proving. The renewal of our party has only just begun and I’m determined to win back the trust of the public and the seats we’ve lost, in the years to come.”
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