Theresa May told by councillor to resign during radio phone-in show

The town councillor – identified as Daniel Turner from Louth in Lincolnshire – said he ‘commended’ the PM for trying to strike a Brexit deal with the EU but ‘sadly that has not worked’.

And he asked her: ‘Please prime minister, tell me why do you think you should stay on as PM when you have failed – despite your no doubt honourable intentions – to (deliver on) the referendum result?

‘If you cannot do that, I respectfully ask you to do the right thing in the national interest and stand down to allow someone from the Brexit camp to take the lead. There is still time to sort this out.’

May responded by going through details of the draft withdrawal agreement.

‘You’re absolutely right that for a lot of people who voted Leave, what they wanted to do was make sure that decisions on things like who can come into this country would be taken by us here in the UK, and not by Brussels, and that’s exactly what the deal I’ve negotiated delivers,’ she said.

Asked whether she had spoken to environment secretary Michael Gove about his future in the Government, May said: ‘I had a very good conversation with Michael yesterday actually.’

She also explained her comparison of her approach to Brexit to the cricketing style of her sporting hero Geoffrey Boycott.

‘The thing about Geoff Boycott is he was absolutely steady, he kept there at the crease, he carried on and relentlessly went about his goal, and I think that’s important,’ she said.

Ferrari said that Boycott had ended his career by being run out by one of his own team, Jim Love of Yorkshire, and asked whether Michael Gove might play the same role in her career.

She replied: ‘I think Michael Gove is Scottish.’

The councillor from Louth later said that was he was not convinced by her answer.

He said: ‘I think she completely went with the robot answer and dodged around it.’