With Boris Johnson set to face a confidence vote on Monday evening, Boris Johnson is expected to "fight his corner" as he seeks to remain Prime Minister.
Senior backbencher Sir Graham Brady - the powerful chair of the 1922 Committee - has confirmed he has now received more than the 54 letters from Tory MPs which triggers a confidence vote. However, Health Secretary Sajid Javid has backed Boris Johnson.
Sir Graham said: ""The threshold of 15% of the parliamentary party seeking a vote of confidence in the leader of the Conservative Party has been exceeded.
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"In accordance with the rules, a ballot will be held between 18:00 and 20:00 today MONDAY 6th JUNE - details to be confirmed."
Speaking to the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4, Sajid Javid said: "I see it as an opportunity for the party to put behind it all of this frenzied speculation we have had over the last few weeks and then get behind a programme of delivery."
He said he thought Boris Johnson would win a confidence vote.
Speaking to Sky News earlier, he said there “may well” be a vote amid, mounting speculation at Westminster. He said: "This country doesn’t need a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister. What we need to be doing as a country is looking ahead to the challenges that exist.
"If this threshold of 54 letters is reached there will be a confidence vote and in that case there should be. There may well be one. If there is, the Prime Minister will stand and fight his corner with a very, very strong case. So let’s just wait and see what happens."
This morning, Jesse Norman has become the latest Tory MP to announce that he has submitted a letter to Sir Graham Brady calling for a confidence vote in Boris Johnson.
In a letter to the Prime Minister posted on social media, Mr Norman - a former minister under David Cameron and the MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire - said Mr Johnson had presided over "a culture of casual law-breaking" in No 10 and that his claim to be vindicated by the Sue Gray report was "grotesque".
Sir Roger Gale, Conservative MP for North Thanet, says the party is "spoilt for choice”"when it comes to options for a new leader, as Boris Johnson faces the possibility of a no confidence vote.
Asked on BBC Breakfast if he knows who he would back to replace the Prime Minister, Sir Roger said: "I haven’t exercised my judgment yet because I don’t know precisely who’s going to run. I do know that we have some very good alternatives to the Prime Minister so we’re not short of choice.
“There is a list of people, and you know the list as well as I do, who are likely to run. Any single one of those people in my view would make a better prime minister than the one that we’ve got at the moment and as I said, I think we’re spoilt for choice.
"There are some very safe pairs of hands there. I won’t name names because the moment I do it’ll be assumed that I’m backing that person."
Figures such as former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt are thought likely to be among any potential future leadership contenders should a contest follow any confidence vote.
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