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A senior Brexiteer minister has resigned from the cabinet, in what could prove to be a fatal blow to Theresa May's premiership.

Andrea Leadsom, who was supposed to introduce the flagship legislation paving way for the Brexit deal becoming law on Thursday, quit saying the government's new approach would not "deliver on the referendum result".

She launched a four-pronged attack on the prime minister on the eve of Britons heading to the polls for the European elections.

It came at the end of a day that saw that could have spelt Mrs May's imminent demise.

The decision was made in a crunch meeting of the executive of the 1922 committee, after the chief whip rushed in and out of meetings with them and Downing Street.

Instead Mrs May was given until Friday, when she will meet Sir Graham Brady - chair of the group representing all Tory MPs.

With ministers who said they were at "tipping point" over the prime minister's leadership temporarily disarmed of the tools to remove her, her immediate future looked secure.

But the move has only enraged her party further.

One compared Mrs May's reluctance to resign to her putting a sofa up against the door.

Another usually loyal MP, chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee Tom Tugendhat, also came out to demand she quit after the elections.

While a junior minister told Sky News: "I just can't trust her anymore."

Ms Leadsom's resignation came on Wednesday evening, in a letter that admitted she had already suffered some "uncomfortable compromises".

She attacked Mrs May for not delivering a Brexit deal that would make the UK "truly sovereign" and presiding over a "complete breakdown of collective responsibility" in cabinet.

The South Northamptonshire MP also blasted the prime minister for offering a vote on another referendum as part of her "compromise" deal to woo Labour into backing the deal.

And she claimed government processes had broken down so much that cabinet ministers had not been able to properly judge or approve Brexit-related proposals.

But in a penned response to the resignation, Mrs May said she did accept comments on "decision making in government".

She then pointed toward Leadsom playing an "important part of ensuring that Brexit-related legislative proposals are properly scrutinised".

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Her resignation carries a great irony, given Ms Leadsom was the one to catapult Mrs May into Number 10 in the final of the Tory leadership contest in the month after the 2016 referendum.

She pulled out after a backlash over a newspaper interview where she appeared to suggest she was better suited to the job because she was a mother.

Ms Leadsom's resignation has now prompted questions about whether the government will push ahead with a vote on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill.

That is the legislation needed to convert its Brexit deal into a legally-binding treaty.

Mrs May has promised to name a departure date no matter the outcome after the vote on it.

The UK is on course to leave the EU on 31 October with no-deal, or earlier if one is ratified by parliament.