Jim Pickard :
Theresa May is considering a fourth attempt to put her EU withdrawal agreement back to the House of Commons this week as pro-EU MPs seek to coalesce around alternative ways forward on Monday. The British Prime Minister will hold a Sunday conference call with her Cabinet after seeing her plan voted down for the third time on Friday, albeit by the narrower margin of 58 votes.
She is now hoping to persuade the remaining Conservative rebel MPs that if they do not fall in line – in a vote that could come as early as Tuesday – then Downing Street will be forced into an even softer Brexit. The EU has set a date of April 12 by which Britain must either leave the bloc without a deal or revoke Article 50, the exit mechanism.
Mrs May’s team is also dangling the threat of a general election in front of Tory MPs in a bid to break the deadlock. That plan, which would require the backing of two-thirds of the members of the House of Commons, drew ire from her own MPs, with Alan Duncan, the foreign office minister, telling the Observer newspaper: “If we have a general election before Brexit is resolved, it will only make things worse.”
A new poll from research group Delta on Sunday put Labour five points ahead of the Conservatives at 41 to 36 per cent. Mrs May said Britain would need an “alternative way forward” in the aftermath of her defeat on March 29, the original D-Day for Brexit. The EU has granted an extra fortnight to try to resolve the impasse after the withdrawal agreement was rejected by MPs on three occasions since January by 230 votes, then 149, then 58.
MPs across the Commons will hold a second round of “indicative votes” on Monday to test support for rival options. But a previous attempt to hold such votes last Wednesday saw MPs reject all eight proposals put forward, ranging from a customs union to a second referendum, no-deal Brexit and single market membership.
However, two options emerged as the most popular in the Commons: a Customs Union with the EU or a second referendum on any deal, both of which are backed by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party. One critical decision will be whether Number 10 allows Cabinet Members to vote this time round, having forced them to abstain last week.
MPs behind a softer Brexit are hoping that they can persuade the 35 MPs in the Scottish National Party, who only backed a second referendum last week, to swing behind their plan. They hope to win a majority for one plan before bringing forward legislation on Thursday compelling Number 10 to accept it. Number 10 is considering trying to revive Mrs May’s deal by pitching it in a Commons run-off against the preferred alternative.
Brandon Lewis, Chairman of the Conservative Party, said at the weekend that the government did not support any of those alternatives.
If Number 10 does yet again put forward its original deal, it faces an uphill struggle to win over the remaining rebels, made up of 28 hardcore Eurosceptics and six MPs pushing for a second referendum. It has also been told repeatedly by the Democratic Unionist Party, the junior partners in Mrs May’s administration, that it will not back the deal.
Even if it wins around some of those critics, Number 10 could still be blocked by John Bercow, the Speaker of the Commons, who has warned that he will not allow endless votes on the same motion unless the substance is substantially different. Mrs May is struggling to contain the growing pressure from her own Eurosceptic MPs to leave without a deal in April.
A letter was delivered to the Prime Minister from 170 MPs, including 10 Cabinet Ministers, demanding a departure by May 22 “with or without a deal”. Some of those Brexiter Cabinet ministers will warn Mrs May during her conference call on Sunday that they will resign if she accepts a Customs Union or goes for a long delay, the Sunday Times reported.
Nicky Morgan, a former Tory Cabinet minister, said one way to end the impasse could be to form a government of National Unity involving figures from more than one political party.
Meanwhile, Dominic Grieve, a pro-EU Tory MP who wants a second referendum, is facing potential deselection after a vote of no confidence from his local Beaconsfield members on Friday night.
(Jim Pickard, Financial Times)
