Southend MP James Duddridge slams Prime Minister Theresa May stating he 'has no confidence in her delivering Brexit'

James Duddridge, the MP for Rochford and Southend East told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We need a strong leader and we haven't got that at the moment.

"Boris yesterday was inspirational, motivational and rallied the troops, rallied politicians, something you could get behind and that's what we need, we need a leader not a chief executive, an administrator, we need a vision to go forward and that's what Boris presented yesterday."

He added: "We haven't got someone that can effectively negotiate with the European Union at the moment, the Brexit negotiations have been an absolute disaster.

"The Cabinet, the team were railroaded into Chequers, the Prime Minister is haemorrhaging support in Cabinet and in her party, no-one seriously expects her to fight another general election, yet we limp on and pretend we're all behind a leader who is not delivering."

Mr Duddridge warned that Theresa's May's handling of the Brexit negotiations "isn't working".

He said: "It was never ever going to work to have somebody leading the team with the big issue of the day Brexit that she fundamentally didn't agree with and she's pulled around her a team that also don't agree with Brexit and has haemorrhaged support from those that did, it isn't working and needs to change."

Asked if he had written to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the Conservative 1922 committee of backbench MPs calling for a change of leader, he added: "At some point I certainly need to do that, I haven't been one of those 48 but if there is a vote of no confidence she's got to go, I personally have no confidence in her leadership over delivering Brexit."

Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster David Lidington said Boris Johnson had not provided any "new answers" to Britain's Brexit approach.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "He's always got some well-crafted lines and it's the end-of-the-pier show sort of event. What he's not done is, I think, provide any new answers to some of the questions that have been raised - that if you're going to advocate a trade arrangement with the EU that looks like the Canadian one, well, then you have to deal with the reality that Canadian goods coming into the EU are subject to all sorts of checks and inspections, paperwork and bureaucracy which would significantly increase costs for British business if they had to go from the current seamless arrangements to those."

He said the Prime Minister was "putting the country first" and was "motivated only by a sense of patriotic duty to get the best deal for every part of the UK".

He added: "I don't think he's answered the question about the Irish border either, so I think that people are entitled to their views and people do express views at fringe meetings, always have done in the 30-plus years I've been going to Conservative Party conferences, but I think that what we'll see this afternoon is the membership rallying behind the Prime Minister, because they know that in her they've got a leader who is putting the country first, who is motivated only by a sense of patriotic duty to get the best deal for every part of the UK."

Mr Lidington, effectively deputy prime minister, said Mr Johnson and his allies had to explain what the economic hit would be from any alternative to the Chequers Brexit plan.

He told the Press Association: "The Chequers package is the only one that's on offer from the EU or anybody else that keeps frictionless trade. Lose that and there is a cost in terms of jobs and investment in the UK.

"And the critics of the Chequers plan need to say why they are willing to accept that trade-off and what do they hope to get in return for the lost jobs and the lost investment?"

He added that the EU was clear that a Canada-style free trade agreement was "only available if we are prepared to see Northern Ireland floated off" and tied to Brussels' laws.

"If you are a Unionist, I don't see how you could possibly accept that," he said.

On Mrs May's speech, Mr Lidington said: "I think it'll be a picture certainly that deals both with the need to conclude a successful negotiation, get a good deal with the European Union on Brexit, but then looking beyond that to say, as other ministers have been doing this week, that we as a team need to show that we are up for the challenge posed by technological change to our economy to employment, but also that we are about giving new opportunities to people, whether that is improving apprenticeships and technical education or whether it is improving house-building so more people can actually get to that dream of home-ownership or addressing the injustices in society."

Mr Lidington said the Government's record included boosting house-building rates and seeing unemployment fall to its lowest level since 1975, adding: "Those are pretty good achievements."

On the Irish border issue, he said: "We've made it very clear that we are not going to countenance the splitting off of Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK ... We obviously will be bringing forward more detailed proposals, alternative proposals to those of Michel Barnier on the so-called backstop very soon....

"If we get the future trade agreement between the UK and the EU on the right basis then the so-called backstop arrangement, which is just there as an emergency bridge if there's a gap between where we are now and the new arrangements coming into force, is never needed, it drops away, we have a seamless trade relationship, that's what both Governments are committed to try to get to."