Why Andrea Leadsom had to distance herself from Theresa May's deal to have a shot at the leadership

Westminster was buzzing with speculation this afternoon. That’s the polite word for it. Otherwise I could call it rumour and admit that no one knew what was going on and so wild theories were built on scraps of gossip – the 1922 Committee was meeting; adjourning; talking to the chief whip; but only for two minutes; ministers had asked to see the prime minister; she said she was too busy; she had gone to have her weekly audience with the Queen instead…

So obviously the question to be asked was whether the prime minister was about to resign. Would she be making a statement? No, was the answer from a No 10 spokesperson, but by then Twitter had already gone through about six cycles of the pros and cons of announcing her resignation on the day before the European elections.

What better moment, then, for a related but unexpected development, which we could all have predicted if we had not been distracted by things that were not happening – not yet, anyway.

Tomorrow is European election day, but the House of Commons is also sitting and Andrea Leadsom, the minister whose job it is to manage parliamentary business, was going to have to say something about the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which is going to be published on Friday and which MPs will consider when they return from next week’s recess.

One of the reasons ministers were being held in a queue and going to be answered shortly, trying to book an appointment with Theresa May, was that they wanted to tell her having a vote on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill was a bad idea.

They thought she was going to lose it by an embarrassingly large margin, and they didn’t want to be associated with something that is unpopular with Conservative MPs, who have votes in the first stage of a leadership contest, and even more unpopular with Conservative Party members, who have votes in the second stage.

Leadsom, meanwhile, who was going to be the minister most closely associated with the bill, apart from the prime minister, saw her moment to strike. You cannot blame us journalists for failing to see it coming. The prime minister and her officials were just as much taken by surprise.

Once it had happened, it made complete sense. Leadsom wants to be prime minister. She made a mess of it last time, but then so did Boris Johnson, and he wants to try again. She thinks she can get it right this time, just as Johnson does.

But she starts from further behind. So she needs to mark herself out from the other contenders in a crowded field. She is currently in fifth place at the bookies, behind Johnson, Dominic Raab, Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove. The two frontrunners have an advantage with the two selectorates who will choose May’s successor: they have both resigned from the government.

They can say the withdrawal agreement – which for growing numbers of increasingly strident Brexiteers is known as the surrender treaty – is nothing to do with them. Now Leadsom can say it too. Her resignation letter gives as her first reason for going: “I do not believe that we will be a truly sovereign UK through the deal that is now proposed.” It is the same deal that she has proposed as a government minister for the past six months, but now she can say it is nothing to do with her.

Despite all the speculation, Theresa May isn’t going to announce her resignation today. Maybe she will on Friday, after the European elections. Or, more likely, she will do so when parliament returns the week after next, on 4 June. But she will announce it soon, and then Leadsom will be a slightly stronger candidate than she would otherwise have been.