A call to allow Tory MPs to stage a vote to show they have "lost faith" in Theresa May's leadership has been rejected by the chairman of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee.
Prominent Brexiteer Mark Francois has written to Sir Graham Brady asking for an "indicative vote of confidence" in the Prime Minister this week if she refuses to step down voluntarily.
But after a meeting in Downing Street between May and the 1922 executive, Sir Graham said they had no intention of agreeing to that course of action.
"As I made clear last week, the executive have discussed it and there is no intention of proceeding," he told reporters.
In his letter, Francois, the deputy chairman of the pro-Brexit European Research Group, said he believed the Prime Minister should resign for the sake of "the existential future of our party and the destiny of our country".
But he said, if she would not, then a vote on Wednesday would send a signal to leaders of the remaining 27 EU states that they should not grant May the delay to Brexit she is requesting at a Brussels summit that evening.
A formal vote of confidence in May as Conservative leader cannot be held until December, after she survived an earlier attempt to oust her by 200 votes to 117, granting her a 12-month period of grace during which no challenge is permitted.
However Sir Graham told last week's meeting of the 1922 executive that a proposal for an indicative vote had been put to him.
The executive decided that, while it was possible for such a vote to be staged, it was neither necessary nor appropriate to do so at this point.
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