A pro-Boris Johnson campaigner has called for the Tory leadership contest to be halted due to cybersecurity concerns.
Lord Cruddas of Shoreditch, whose campaign for the shamed PM to be on the ballot has been backed by more than 14,000 Tory members, says Mr Johnson's resignation should be rejected while the issues are resolved.
It comes after the party delayed delivery of ballot papers amid hacking fears.
He also suggested that members should be given the opportunity to vote on Mr Johnson remaining in post - meaning there would be "no need for a leadership contest".
In a letter to chief executive Darren Mott and the party's board published on the Conservative Post website, Lord Cruddas said: "The board should reject the resignation of the Prime Minister and ask him to stay on whilst the board fixes any cyber issues and the leadership campaign can be revisited in due course."
Party members should be allowed to decide "on a simple yes/no ballot to accept the Prime Minister's resignation going forward", he suggested.
"If the members vote to keep Boris then there is no need for a leadership campaign and no more cyber security threats."
Lord Cruddas says the debacle should be an opportunity to look at whether Mr Johnson should leave after all.
As The Mirror previously reported, a petition circulated on the Conservative Post website reads: "Back in 2019, Boris Johnson was elected by the membership to be our new leader.
"Now that choice has been changed without referral to the people that elected him, the loyal and hard-working membership of the Conservative Party.
"I accept that there are current rules in place that we will have a choice between the final two candidates but that is not the point because our first choice has been removed without our involvement.
"You cannot disenfranchise the membership from the whole process from the beginning as this is open to abuse by the parliamentary party who may have vested interest reasons and grievances to settle against our leader, which has been the case with the current process."
More than 14,000 party members have signed the petition.
Confronted over the call for Mr Johnson to stay, Rishi Sunak last week rubbished the petition.
The former Chancellor, whose resignation helped spark the crisis which brought the PM down, said: "I'd say to them that I think close to 60 people resigned in Parliament and it's incumbent on the Prime Minister to have the confidence of the parliamentary party, and that wasn't there at the end.
"So whether he's on the ballot or not, ultimately you need to be able to command the confidence of your MPs in Parliament, and we got to a point where close to 60 of them had resigned from Government."
Today it emerged that the Tory party has made changes to its process on the advice of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of GCHQ, following warnings that hackers could change members' votes.
Under the party's original system, members would be able to vote but change their decision while the ballot remained open but now a unique code will be provided which will only allow one, unchangeable vote.
The ballots had been due to be sent out from Monday but could now arrive as late as Thursday August 11.A Conservative spokesman said: "We have consulted with the NCSC throughout this process and have decided to enhance security around the ballot process.
"Eligible members will start receiving ballot packs this week."
An NCSC spokesman said: "Defending UK democratic and electoral processes is a priority for the NCSC and we work closely with all parliamentary political parties, local authorities and MPs to provide cyber security guidance and support.
"As you would expect from the UK's national cyber security authority, we provided advice to the Conservative Party on security considerations for online leadership voting."
The Daily Telegraph said it understood there was no specific threat from a hostile state and concerns were around the vulnerability of the voting process.
The party has been forced to abandon the plans to let members change their vote if they alter their decision about which candidate to back during the election process, the newspaper reported.
