David Cameron faces leadership challenge as Bill Cash becomes third Tory MP to threaten no confidence vote

'My view is that they’ve been engaged in monumentally misleading propaganda…they have relentlessly and flagrantly been anything but impartial and inaccurate'

'Basically I think that they have got a very, very short time in which to correct all this' (Youtube)

Sir Bill Cash has become the third Conservative MP to publicly say he is considering a vote of no confidence in David Cameron, following weeks of in-fighting in the party over the European Union referendum.

Mr Cash, a veteran Eurosceptic who chairs the European Scrutiny Committee, branded the Prime Minister’s EU Remain campaign as “monumentally misleading propaganda” in an interview with the Telegraph.

He added he is “certainly considering” submitting a letter of no confidence in the party leader to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee - a backbench group of Conservative MPs in Westminster.

"My view is that they’ve been engaged in monumentally misleading propaganda… they have relentlessly and flagrantly been anything but impartial and inaccurate,” he said.

“Basically I think that they have got a very, very short time in which to correct all this. In my 30 year I’ve never seen anything on this including during Sir John Major’s time.”

His intervention follows Nadine Dorries, who in a frank admission, revealed to ITV’s Peston on Sunday that she believed Mr Cameron will be “toast” within days of a Brexit vote. She added that she had already submitted a letter of no confidence and confirmed she is now backing Boris Johnson, the former Mayor of London, as the future leader of the party.

Party rules dictate that 50 backbenchers must follow suit to trigger a vote of no confidence. However, it is likely that Mr Cameron would survive such a vote.

She said: “My letter is already in. If the Remain camp wins by a large majority – I think it would have to be 60/40 – then David Cameron might just survive; but if Remain win by a narrow majority or lose ... he’s toast within days. He has lied profoundly, and I think that is actually really at the heart of why Conservative MPs have been so angered. To say that Turkey is not going to join the European Union as far as 30 years is a lie."

Prominent backbencher Andrew Bridgen also said that more than 50 MPs were ready to move against the Tory leader if Britons vote for Brexit on June 23.

But Tory peer Lord Finkelstein said on Sunday it was unlikely that any coup against the Prime Minister would be successful.

Appearing on the Westminster Hour, he said: “I think it will not be difficult to find 50 people who are discontented with David Cameron at the end, probably more, but I think it would be very hard to produce a majority of the Conservative Party that wanted to remove him if he, or indeed even enough people to want to remove him and that I think will make even those who are against him think twice before they start a letter campaign that might end up strengthening him not weakening him.”