Pressure for new confidence vote if PM May does not set exit date: 1922 treasurer

LONDON (Reuters) - If Prime Minister Theresa May does not set a resignation date on Friday there will be overwhelming pressure to change the Conservative Party's rules over when her leadership can be challenged, the treasury of the party's influential 1922 Committee was quoted as saying. May survived a confidence vote in December and under current rules cannot be challenged again for 12 months. The 1922 Committee executive have so far decided against forcing through a change but the panel's chair is due to meet May on Friday. "I want her to give a timetable for when she will go. I think this blank denial from Number 10 today may be a smokescreen because she does not want to influence the outcome of the European elections. Maybe she will still quit tomorrow," Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, treasurer of the 1922 Committee told the Press Association, according the Guardian. Asked what would happen if she did not announce a resignation date, he said: "There will be overwhelming pressure for the 22 to change the rules and hold a ballot on confidence in the prime minister." (Reporting by Kate Holton and Kylie MacLellan; Editing by William Schomberg)