Liz Truss was battling an open revolt as the number of Tory MPs demanding her resignation swelled after a calamitous 24 hours for her premiership.
The number of Conservatives publicly calling for the Prime Minister to quit doubled to a dozen within the space of a couple of hours on Thursday morning.
Tory MPs were wondering how long Ms Truss can go on after the chaotic scenes in the Commons that followed the resignation of Suella Braverman as home secretary.
But Transport Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan insisted that, “at the moment”, she believes Ms Truss will lead the party into the next election.
Senior backbencher Simon Hoare was unable to say whether the country has a functioning Government as he gave Ms Truss “12 hours” to fix the situation.
The pound, which faced a battering over the disastrous mini-budget, slid again as City traders digested the growing turmoil in Westminster.
Six Conservatives demanded Ms Truss’s exit before the morning was out, with the number expected to rise further – with the scale of private demands believed to be far higher.
Veteran Tory Sir Gary Streeter said it now seems they must change leader but warned the Tories could still face “slaughter at the next election” even if “angel Gabriel” took over.
Sheryll Murray said Ms Truss’s position was “untenable” after ugly scenes including allegations of bullying in the Commons and No 10 unable to say for hours whether the whips had quit.
Miriam Cates told Times Radio “it’s time for the Prime Minister to go”, with Henry Smith demanding she does the “honourable thing” in order to get “solid leadership”.
But who would succeed Ms Truss remained a major point of contention, with Steve Double demanding a unity candidate such as Rishi Sunak after Ms Truss “lost control”.
Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, however, was tipping Boris Johnson, forced out just months ago over a series of scandals, to take over again.
The turmoil appeared to be affecting the pound as sterling declined by 0.27% to 1.119 against the US dollar – its lowest reading this week.
The events of Wednesday saw Ms Braverman lash out at Ms Truss’s “tumultuous” premiership as she resigned and accused the Government of “breaking key pledges” including on immigration policy.
Her departure, just five days after Kwasi Kwarteng’s sacking as chancellor, means the Prime Minister has lost two people from the four great offices of state within her first six weeks in No 10, with all eyes on whether other Cabinet ministers could follow suit.
The exodus appeared to continue, with speculation chief whip Wendy Morton and her deputy Craig Whittaker had resigned in fury at the handling of a vote on a Labour motion over fracking.
At 9.49pm – over two hours after the vote – No 10 issued a statement saying both remained in post.
In an extraordinary further update at 1.33am, Downing Street said the Prime Minister has “full confidence” in both of them.
It came after climate minister Graham Stuart told the Commons minutes before the vote that “quite clearly this is not a confidence vote”, despite Mr Whittaker earlier issuing a “100% hard” three-line whip, meaning any Tory MP who rebelled could be thrown out of the parliamentary party.
No 10 later said Mr Stuart had been “mistakenly” told by Downing Street to say the vote should not be treated as a confidence motion, and that Conservative MPs were “fully aware” it was subject to a three-line whip.
A spokesman said the whips would be speaking to the Tories who failed to support the Government, and those without a “reasonable excuse” would face “proportionate disciplinary action” – although that does not necessarily mean whey would have the whip removed.
The confusion led to ugly scenes at Westminster, with Cabinet ministers Therese Coffey and Jacob Rees-Mogg among a group of senior Tories accused of pressuring colleagues to go into the “no” lobby, with Labour former minister Chris Bryant saying some MPs were “physically manhandled into another lobby and being bullied”.
Business Secretary Mr Rees-Mogg insisted he had seen no evidence of anyone being manhandled, but senior Tory MP Sir Charles Walker said what took place was “inexcusable” and “a pitiful reflection on the Conservative Parliamentary Party”.
Ms Trevelyan told Sky News it is “never acceptable” for MPs to be “manhandled” into voting, adding she was “shocked” by reports from the Commons.
She said Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle would be investigating “to ensure that these scenes and indeed these situations do not happen again”.
Tory rebels were confused over whether they still had the party whip, with Siobhan Baillie saying: “I don’t know but I hope so.”
In a sign of the growing pressure on Ms Truss, Tory former Brexit minister Lord Frost joined calls for her to step down.
“The Government is implementing neither the programme Liz Truss originally advocated nor the 2019 manifesto. It is going in a completely different direction,” the Conservative peer, who backed Ms Truss to be Prime Minister, wrote in The Telegraph.
“There is no shred of a mandate for this. It’s only happening because the Truss Government messed things up more badly than anyone could have imagined… Something has to give.”
There is speculation the chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, has already received more than 54 letters calling for a confidence vote in the Prime Minister, the threshold for triggering one if Ms Truss was not in the 12-month grace period for new leaders.
