Amid a crippling cabinet split over government policy and Brexit, the Tory leader is to address her party at its annual conference in Manchester, where she is expected to brief them on their “duty” to serve Britain.

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“For beyond this hall, beyond the gossip pages of the newspapers, and beyond the streets, corridors and meeting rooms of Westminster, life continues - the daily lives of ordinary working people go on,” the PM will say in her first major speech to the party since the self-imposed disaster of her snap election in June.

“And they must be our focus today. Not worrying about our job security, but theirs. Not addressing our concerns, but the issues, the problems, the challenges that concern them.

“Not focusing on our future, but on the future of their children and their grandchildren – doing everything we can to ensure their tomorrow will be better than our today.”

It comes just days after Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson gave an interview in the Murdoch-owned Sun tabloid where he set four red lines for Brexit, which include the resolve to limit the transition period to two years only and “not a second more.”

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Because his remarks go far beyond May’s statements in Italy two weeks ago, the interview was seen as yet another challenge to the Tory leader’s authority.

Johnson, who also set himself out as a ‘man of people’ as he called on the government to allow a pay rise for public sector workers, had already stirred controversy at the beginning of the month when he penned a 4,300-word essay in the Telegraph, in which he said the UK would never agree to a divorce bill.

This neglected the fact the government had just agreed a £30 billion bill could be paid over a two-year transition period.

During the speech May will also seize the chance to quieten speculation over her leadership as she steers the UK out of the EU.

“There will be obstacles and barriers along the way. But it has never been my style to hide from a challenge, to shrink from a task, to retreat in the face of difficulty, to give up and turn away,” the PM will say, according to Sky.

“And it is when tested the most that we reach deep within ourselves and find that our capacity to rise to the challenge before us may well be limitless.”