MICHAEL HOWARD suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of his MPs last night when Conservatives threw out his plans to overhaul rules for electing the leader.

At a packed meeting of backbenchers only four backed Mr Howard’s plans for reform, and they included the party leader himself and Francis Maude, his party chairman. The majority backed instead a move to strip party members of any role in choosing the next leader.

Opponents of Mr Howard said that he was finished and they would step up efforts to get rid of him by gathering signatures to trigger a vote of no confidence.

Most MPs say, however, that they are not seeking blood and have accepted Mr Howard’s decision to stay until the October party conference. By then, new leadership rules should have been agreed. “Michael is clearly totally impotent with only a tiny band of supporters prepared to put up their hands and back him,” one senior Tory said. “That is hardly ideal, but there is little appetite to assassinate him.”

Tories at the weekly meeting of the 1922 Committee of MPs also threw out the existing rules, which give activists the final say over who leads the party. Those rules led to the election in 2001 of Iain Duncan Smith as leader, widely considered to have been a mistake.

The compromise plan, drawn up by the 1922 executive, strips members of their voting rights and returns to MPs the power to elect the leader. The only concession to the rank and file is a promise to consult them on a short list of candidates before proceeding to an MPs’ vote.

The party’s ruling board will meet on Monday to try to decide what to do next. For the new rules to go ahead, they will need the backing of two thirds of the national convention, made up of constituency association chairmen. MPs said last night that it was not certain that the chairmen would back the MPs’ plans, but there was room for negotiation.

Aides to Mr Howard dismissed suggestions that the leader had been humiliated. They said that the proposal backed by MPs would require changes to the party’s constitution, which would mean sticking to Mr Howard’s timetable.

The current rules would have given David Davis, a favourite with activists, an advantage in the forthcoming leadership contest, but friends say that he is relaxed about the likely changes. “David has made quite clear the new leader needs the backing of MPs and party members,” one said.

If the MPs were to get their way and seize back control over leadership contests, however, it would help a challenger to Mr Davis to mount a strong campaign. Mr Davis has many enemies on the Tory benches who could vote tactically to try to wreck his chances.

Mr Howard’s proposals for the leadership involved a complex arrangement under which activists voted for a candidate who would go through to a final run-off, with MPs making the final choice.

Baroness Thatcher waded into the row on Tuesday when she urged MPs to get on with choosing a successor to Mr Howard. The former Prime Minister used a dinner thrown in her honour to express her dismay that a new leader would not be in place until the end of the year.

Lady Thatcher did not speak at the Conservative Way Forward dinner at the Dorchester Hotel on Tuesday night, but had a written statement read on her behalf. “Go back to first principles, decide what you believe in, work out your policies and explain them. And, probably most importantly, get on with it,” the statement said.

Other senior party figures also urged colleagues to speed up the process. Ann Widdecombe, the former Shadow Home Secretary, said that it would be a bad idea for the autumn conference to be turned into a beauty parade of all the prospective leadership candidates.

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