- Conservative MPs are confident they can replace Boris Johnson with a new prime minister as early as August.
- Briefings from Downing Street suggested that Johnson was planning to remain as caretaker until October.
- Johnson's speech appeared to have further driven a wedge between the outgoing PM and his MPs.
Conservative MPs are defying Boris Johnson's plans to stay in Downing Street for another three months, with their own bid for a "rapid" departure.
Senior Tories, granted anonymity to speak frankly, told Insider that a new prime minister could be in place by as early as the end of August or beginning of September.
Briefings from Number 10 had previously suggested Johnson was hoping to cling on as caretaker into October.
But one backbencher said the 1922 executive committee would move fast, holding its own elections on Monday and aiming to set out the timetable for the leadership election on the same day.
The first round of voting for leadership candidates "will take place next week," the MP said, with all parliamentary stages "concluded by recess", which starts on July 21.
That would then open the final stage, in which Tory members pick one of the two remaining candidates, to take place over the summer.
"We don't want him to stay until October," the MP said bluntly.
Another stressed the timeline had not yet been decided but agreed it was "likely to be a rapid conclusion", with membership votes over the summer holiday.
"Whether it is the end of August or beginning of September is pretty immaterial," he added. "He will be gone in time for the party conference."
Johnson's speech, in which he blamed backbenchers' "herd instinct" for the "eccentric" decision to oust him, appeared to have further driven a wedge between the outgoing prime minister and Tory MPs.
One told Insider: "It doesn't appear that he is contrite… There is only one reason it happened. Him."
Another, who is vying to be elected to the 1922 executive committee, said the speech was "ridiculous, no self-reflection at all".
That was echoed by Bob Neill, one of many to call for Johnson to resign this week, who told Sky News: "References to eccentricity and herd instinct doesn't give the sense of somebody who realises actually that he got it wrong and that he made mistakes - not much sense of contrition in there."